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XTrac Raises $2.5 Million To Help Artists Monetize Their Music and Merch
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.

Music tech startup Trac, which helps independent artists distribute songs, merchandise and NFTs, has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Nigerian investment firm Zrosk.
Launched in 2020 by founder Cardin Campbell, a former marketing tech executive at Peloton and Expedia, Trac pitches itself as a one-stop shop for musicians to monetize and manage their careers. The Santa Monica-based company allows artists to upload songs and get them distributed on major streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. It also lets artists design and sell merchandise like shirts, hats and hoodies through websites that the platform builds for them.
While Trac offers its music distribution services for free, it offers premium features like quicker payouts of streaming revenues through subscriptions starting at $60 annually, according to its website. The company also collects a 3% transaction fee on earnings paid out to artists. Roughly 200,000 artists have used the platform to date, a Trac spokesperson said.
Trac founder and CEO Cardin Campbell.
Courtesy of Trac
Campbell told dot.LA that he envisions Trac becoming something like an Amazon Web Services for artists—a single platform for both emerging musicians and superstars to run their operations. Currently, most of Trac’s customers are up-and-comers who don’t have a record label behind them—and aren’t in a rush for one either, according to Campbell.
“[Trac’s artists] want to remain independent,” Campbell said. “So our product is literally helping them with that and making sure that they can retain all the rights that they possibly can, and monetize their name and likeness and the music with their fans really easily.”
Joining Lagos-based Zrosk in the pre-seed round were AppWorks, InfinityVC, Calm Company Fund and Dapper Labs, as well as angel investors like Roham Gharegozlou and Siqi Chen.
Trac—which currently has 45 employees but less than 10 full-timers—plans to use the funds to grow its engineering and operations teams. Like seemingly everyone else in the music industry these days, the startup plans to enter the world of crypto in the coming weeks and begin minting non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, for its artists, Campbell said. Trac also wants to create decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) for artists, who could then sell their own crypto tokens to raise capital and give fans a share of their future revenues.
“You're literally investing in that artist’s future and helping to get them to that next level,” Campbell said of Trac’s DAO designs. “It’s flipping the industry on its head.”
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Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
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Valence, a Network for Black Professionals, Acquired by Fintech Firm Greenwood
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Valence, a Los Angeles-based networking platform for Black professionals, has been bought by digital banking platform Greenwood, the company announced Wednesday.
Atlanta-based Greenwood—which provides services intended to boost financial opportunities for Black and Latino people and businesses—said it will use Valence’s network to connect its community with professional development tools. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Since launching in 2019, Valence has raised more than $7 million in funding from investors including GGV Capital and Upfront Ventures. (Valence co-founder and chairman Kobie Fuller is a general partner at Upfront.) The startup has built features into its platform such as Pipeline, a database to help corporate recruiters find Black candidates, and BONDS, a mentoring program it launched last year to foster leadership skills in Black professionals.
“We’re being very targeted in how we can drive economic opportunity and wealth creation in the Black community," Fuller said in a statement. “Joining with Greenwood is a commitment to our community and accelerates our mission towards creating new paths to success for Black professionals and fuels our efforts towards closing the racial wealth gap.”
Fuller will join Greenwood’s advisory board, while Valence CEO Guy Primus will retain his role and take on the new title of vice president at Greenwood.
The deal comes after Greenwood acquired The Gathering Spot, a private membership network for the Black community, last month. The fintech company said it hopes the new acquisitions will help it build tools to close the racial wealth gap.
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Creator Startup Jellysmack Adds High-Profile TikTokers to Its Platform
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
The creator economy startup Jellysmack is expanding its platform to include TikTokers, the New York-based company announced Wednesday.
Jellysmack’s A.I. technology, proprietary data and video editing tools had been limited to long-form YouTubers. The new initiative is meant to help TikTok creators spread their content across multiple platforms and explore long-form content creation. Additionally, creators already in their program can now explore short-form content syndication.
Jellysmack will distribute TikTok creators’ content across platforms such as Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Snapchat Spotlight. Short-form creators with at least 50,000 followers and 500 videos are eligible to apply for the program. So far, 30 high-profile TikTok creators, including Nick Smithyman and Lindy and Jlo, have joined the program.
“TikTok’s explosive growth has fostered a new crop of incredibly talented creators, but TikTok alone isn’t enough to make a living,” Jellysmack President Sean Atkins said in a statement. “Creators who can expand onto multiple platforms have a massive growth and earnings opportunity, and Jellysmack enables creators to do it all—with no extra work.”
The expansion is meant to help TikTok creators find new ways to grow their audiences and monetize their content. TikTok has previously faced criticism for what many see as its creator fund’s insubstantial payouts, though the platform has recently announced new ways for users to make money on their content.
Jellysmack reached unicorn status in 2021. It now has over 100 employees working out of L.A. and a number of local creators on its roster. It recently acquired a YouTube analytics company to bolster its creator program.
As creators navigate the increasing need to build audiences across multiple platforms, a handful of startups are competing on tools that can make their work profitable. Jellysmack and its Los Angeles-based competitor Spotter have both invested in licensing old YouTube videos in order to sell ads against them, while ventures like Creative Juice are finding new ways to fund artists working in the creator economy.
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Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Snap’s Yellow Accelerator Cohort Features 3 LA Startups
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Online dating startup Blink Date is testing the notion that love is truly blind.
Unlike Tinder and Bumble, Los Angeles-based Blink doesn’t show singles any photos of potential matches right away. Instead, the app pairs users in 10-minute, audio-only speed dates. It’s not until after the conversations that singles can see three unidentified pictures and tell Blink what they think of them. The app, still in beta testing, matches users only if there’s mutual interest.
“Through voice dates, we're enabling singles to actually find and build authentic connections,” Blink co-founder and CEO Taly Matiteyahu told potential investors on Wednesday.
Blink was one of eight startups—including three from Los Angeles—to pitch themselves to investors during Snap’s Yellow Accelerator Demo Day. The event is part of a 12-week curriculum run by the social media giant, which mentors early-stage startups on topics ranging from business strategy to fundraising. Snap invests $150,000 in each firm (Disclosure: Snap is an investor in dot.LA).
The accelerator’s fifth cohort covered a wide range of tech, from travel to gaming to online dating. Snap announced Wednesday that its next accelerator class starting this fall will focus exclusively on augmented reality—a strategic priority for the social media company.
Other L.A. startups in the current cohort included Bump, a fintech platform for the creator economy. Founded last year, the company helps creators track revenue from multiple sources, monitor expenses, access credit and manage their crypto and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The startup has a waitlist of 350 users who’d pay $399 per year once the platform goes live, co-founder and CEO James Jones said.
“The lack of accurate tracking of revenue means that creators are denied access to traditional loans or traditional forms of credit because a creator’s revenue is considered too unstable, too unpredictable, and therefore they're too risky,” Jones said of the problem Bump seeks to solve.
Los Angeles-based Well Traveled is creating a paid membership club for travelers to connect and share recommendations. Founder Samantha Patil said members are using the platform more like a social tool rather than a trip-planning app, so users are logged in even when they aren’t about to book a getaway. The startup’s roughly 1,200 members are paying $150 per year.
“Consumers are craving communities that help connect them to each other and create knowledge sharing amongst their peers,” Patil said.
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Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.