Laylo (the “Company”), a customer relationship management (CRM) platform powering some of the world’s biggest drops, has completed a new round of strategic investment. Led by Eldridge, the round also included participation from Third Prime Ventures, LVRN Management, Shane Mac (XMTP), Gil Weisblum (Ranger Global), Patricio Worthalter (POAP), Jonathan Strauss (Create Music Group), Damian Manning (HiFi), Summer Watson and Micah Johnson (Aku World), Sam Evitt (Method Music), and Moment Ventures.
“This year, we helped creators across music, podcasting, gaming, sports, and video create drop experiences that drove tens of millions in tickets, merchandise, content, and collectibles. We’re excited to have even more capital to triple down on our mission of building the Creator CRM by growing the team, expanding to new verticals and launching new features faster,” said Alec Ellin, Co-Founder and CEO of Laylo. “Since launch, we’ve heard that creators feel ignored by legacy platforms that don’t consider them to be a category worth building for. We’re here to fill the gap. Creators are the next generation of entrepreneurs in a hyper growth market and we’re building them the business tools they deserve.”
Laylo powers millions of drops per month across music, podcasting, sports, fashion, gaming, and other categories, with notable customers including Sam Smith, ODESZA, Dixie D’Amelio, Kodak Black, Miles Teller, The Black Keys, Rickie Fowler, and the Friends With Benefits DAO. The Company has achieved several growth and product development milestones over the last 12 months, including:
- Increasing the number of creators using its platform by more than 5x to over 10,000
- Establishing strategic partnerships with other Creator Economy disruptors, including Acast (podcast distribution), Fevo (sports and entertainment ticketing), Sound.xyz (music NFTs), Polygon (Web3 tooling), Hoo.be (link-in-bio), Genies (digital fashion), CD Baby (music distribution), Pixelynx (gaming), Voice.com (NFT art collectibles)
- Enabling creators to notify fans directly through Instagram DMs
- Building a Spotify ‘Follow and Pre-Save’ integration that drives up to 3x conversion rates for musicians
- Launching a Web3 messaging feature that allows creators and brands to send gated messages to fans based on NFT ownership
“We were blown away by the product and saw how quickly our artists felt the same,” shared Justice Baiden, Co-Founder of LVRN Management. “Within a few days of meeting the Laylo team, we were rolling out drops with DVSN and Westside Boogie and given the success, we’re bringing the rest of our roster onboard. Turning a social media following into a direct connection with fans is key for developing superstars and Laylo lets us take that to the next level. Laylo is already the definitive CRM platform for drops and the creator tools they’re rolling out are going to change the game, we knew we had to invest.”
The Creator Economy is estimated to be a $104 billion market, according to Influencer Marketing Hub, with more than 300 million people worldwide considering themselves to be creators, according to Adobe. Per Emergen Research, the global Web3 market size is also expected to reach $81.5 billion in 2030, a CAGR of 43.7% from $3.2 billion in 2021.
Laylo’s latest funding round brings total funds raised to more than $8 million. It follows a capital raise by the Company in July 2021, which attracted investment from Y Combinator; Charlie Walker & Charles Attal, founders of C3 Presents; Jason Robins, CEO and Co-Founder of DraftKings; Kevin Mayer, Founder of Candle Media and Chairman of DAZN; The Orchard; Sony Music’s The Orchard; and Moment Ventures.
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