Lizzo, one of multiple commercially prominent acts with a profile on KOMI. Photo Credit: Daniel Benavides
Self-described “all-in-one creator commerce platform” KOMI has announced a $12 million Series A that drew participation from Sony Music Entertainment and Live Nation.
Three-year-old KOMI just recently detailed its newest multimillion-dollar round, which has per execs elevated the business’s total backing to $17 million. According to its website, the platform enables users – among them The Jonas Brothers, Elton John, Usher, and U2, to name some – to equip their ostensibly one-stop KOMI landing pages with an abundance of links, products, and content.
Lizzo’s KOMI hub, for instance, includes icon links to her social-media accounts as well as her Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, and Amazon Music profiles. The 35-year-old has also added a “latest release” section, tour information, and physical music and merch purchase options to the all-encompassing KOMI page.
And while these purchase options currently link to external stores, KOMI is now poised to roll out “unique on-page checkout functionality” and “custom-built data capture tools” in beta, higher-ups have revealed.
Back to the specifics of the $12 million Series A, however, London’s RTP Global, New York-based Third Prime, Sonomo stakeholder Antler, Abu Dhabi’s e& capital, and Ticketfly investor Contour Ventures led the round.
Live Nation and Sony Music, for their part, joined Vicus and Laffitte Management Group (which counts as clients some KOMI users) in participating as “strategic investors.” Moving forward, KOMI intends to utilize the newly secured capital to build out its core offering and expand its stateside team, “with a focus” on creator partnerships and marketing roles alike.
Addressing the round in a statement, KOMI co-founder and CEO Lewis Crosbie, hyperlinking to a Goldman Sachs report, touted the perceived “huge commercial potential” of the creator economy in the approaching years.
“The creator economy is on track to grow to $480 billion by 2027, proving creators have huge commercial potential given the trust and distribution they have garnered from their fans,” relayed Crosbie, whose company is said to have “experienced more than 500% growth of creators signing up for the waitlist since December” of 2022.
“However,” concluded the former Sensat exec, “creators and brands currently lack the digital infrastructure needed in order to maximize this opportunity, which is why KOMI is focused on building around three core pillars we believe are the most important for creators to reach their commercial potential, namely: Content, Commerce and Community.”
Earlier this week, fan-monetization platform Passes acquired competing “subscription social media platform” Fanhouse, and after making preliminary payments under Creator Ads Revenue Sharing, Twitter is currently tweaking and expanding the program.
