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Read the 20-page pitch deck Kyra, a creator platform, used to raise a $15 million Series A
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- Kyra, a creator-economy startup, announced a $15 million Series A round in late October.
- It plans to use the funds to launch Kyra Platform, a service to connect brands and influencers.
- Here are 20 slides from the pitch deck the company used.
The creator-economy startup Kyra announced a $15 million Series A round in late October.
The round was led by Bonnier Ventures with participation from LionTree, Firstminute Capital, Guardian Media Group Ventures, and Torch Capital, among others.
Kyra’s cofounder Devran Amaratunga Karaca told Insider the company plans to use the funding to launch Kyra Platform, an influencer-marketing service to connect brands and creators focused on TikTok partnerships.
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“It’s similar to how freelancers operate with Upwork,” he said, adding, “It’s a place where they come to build their career, find brands to work with.”
With this system, brands can send prospective campaign briefs using two models: Hero Briefs, which cast curated creators in campaigns on a fixed rate, or Community Briefs, which are campaigns open to any creator and pay on a performance basis.
A creator can review the brief — including the proposed compensation — and decide whether to participate in the campaign. If they accept, they are required to post a video on TikTok and link to that video on Kyra. If the content meets the brand’s requirements, the creator will get paid. Payments are performance-based, with a set payout per video view.
The services offered on Kyra Platforms will be free to creators, while brands will pay a fee to be on the platform and an additional fee for campaign execution.
There is no exclusivity required of the creator — they can work on different platforms or with their own manager in addition to being on Kyra Platform.
Kyra, founded in 2017, has worked with brands like Nike, Converse, Calvin Klein, and Amazon Prime Video. Karaca said the company worked with about 5,000 creators across branded campaigns over the past year.
The rise of TikTok has been key in the development of the company. It began shifting its focus to the short-form video platform in 2019, after two years of operating primarily as a content studio on YouTube.
Kyra’s ecosystem includes Kyra Originals, a network of TikTok channels producing original content; Kyra Profile, a Gen Z creator incubator program; and Kyra Studios, a production studio that creates social content on behalf of brands.
In 2020, after the Black Lives Matter protests, several creators came forward to describe issues working with the company and accused it of mistreating creators of color.
Karaca told Insider in a statement that it had “made mistakes in the past and ultimately didn’t uphold our company’s core values,” adding that the company had since undergone a restructuring.
Karaca said the company was “proud of the environment we’ve fostered at Kyra with both our employees and creators,” adding that it had “a strong culture, and high engagement and retention, but most importantly a psychologically safe workplace.”
Read 20 pages of the pitch deck Kyra used to raise a $15 million Series A round:
Note: One slide containing confidential information about the company’s revenue was removed at Kyra’s request.
An introductory slide shows the company’s name and its goal to become “the home of creators.”
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The deck presents data about the company’s audience.
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This slide introduces Kyra’s cofounders, Karaca and Nicholas Dart.
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Kyra provides an overview of the services it offers.
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The company explains what it has built and achieved so far with each of its products.
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The company describes Kyra IQ, its database of trending hashtags, audio, and topics on social media.
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Kyra lists the services the company can offer brands and creators.
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The company reiterates its vision.
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It shows the market size for the creator economy, including the number of creators globally and brand spend on creators globally.
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The company said these numbers came from Linktree’s 2022 Creator Report and from September 2021 Statista research.
Kyra is looking to solve the problem of generating consistent income as a creator.
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It presents the solution as a platform for brands and creators to connect, which it says helps streamline partnerships.
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A graph shows how much Kyra paid creators in the past 12 months.
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The company lists the brands it works or has worked with.
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It describes the proprietary technology it’s building.
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This slide summarizes what competitors offer and how Kyra plans to set itself apart.
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Kyra announces its new product, Kyra Platform.
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Kyra outlines the features it plans to launch on the platform through 2023.
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Karaca said this was a key slide to get the support of investors.
Here’s the timeline of features it plans to introduce in the next year:
- November: Brand campaigns, a core feature of the platform.
- December: Instant payments, thanks to an integration with Stripe.
- March: A star-rating system for creators and brands to provide mutual feedback.
- June: A discussion forum where creators can interact.
- September: A feature for creators to see data on how their content is performing and get suggestions of trends that could help it perform better.
- December 2023: A system for creators to automatically cross-post their TikTok content on other platforms.
The company outlines its business model.
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It breaks down how it plans to use the money raised from the Series A round.
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The presentation ends with a thank-you slide.
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