How Amazon Influencers Can Cash Out This Prime Day

Creators like Lundeberg will have a chance to boost their payouts during Amazon’s October 11-12 marketing spree, the first time Amazon has held two events in one year. The July event seemed to lose some of the fizz of past sales extravaganzas, but it still represented the biggest moment for U.S. online spending, according to shopping tracker Adobe. (Read more on the second Prime Day.)

It will also provide some insight into whether shoppers are responding to livestreaming. That’s a gimmick popular in Asia that U.S. companies, including Facebook and Twitter, tested over the last two years. But July’s Amazon Live Prime Day stream was fairly lackluster: the top stream peaked at 57,000 concurrent views, a small audience considering Amazon had more than 200 million Prime subscribers. TikTok in recent months has backed down from its live-shopping efforts. 

Still, Amazon and its creators have the benefit of promoting products on a platform where audience members already have an account, saved payment method and address and don’t need to go through hoops to buy. If anyone can make people shop on livestreams, it should be Amazon.  

The Takeaway: E-commerce has represented an attractive option for creators and the platforms that try to court them. But advertising-driven networks such as TikTok and Instagram have backed away from some efforts in recent months. Amazon’s next Prime Day—another money-making opportunity for creators—could buck the trend. 

Here’s what else is going on…

Songfinch Projects $40 Million In Sales

​Songfinch, a Chicago-based startup offering personalized songs, announced $17 million in Series A funding led by Valor Siren Ventures on Thursday. 

Customers request a custom song for family members or friends performed by independent artists starting at $200, similar to requesting a celebrity shout out on Cameo. The musician keeps $100 and owns the song rights. Songfinch customers can also order additional gifts, such as a custom vinyl record or sheet music of the song. 

Songfinch co-founder and CEO John Williamson told me the startup expects to break $40 million in revenue this year, up from $5.5 million in 2021, before expenses such as artist payouts and cost of goods. “We’re definitely bucking a lot of the trends in regards to the economy and what’s taking place,” he said in an interview. “It’s a testament to the product.” 

In April, Songfinch raised about $5 million in seed funding led by venture firm Corazon Capital. The company also raised $2 million in funding in July 2021. Williamson said raising funding this summer was different from past rounds due to “very deep diligence” from investors. 

“This Series A felt like a Series B+ in regards to the level of diligence and expectation on performance. We had to stop ourselves at times and say ‘We’re raising a Series A right?’” he said. “Some of the diligence process with some of the funds felt like it was a [private equity] firm and they were trying to make a purchase.”

The 70-person startup expects to double its team by the end of next year, focusing on hiring developers, designers, technology and product roles, Williamson said.–Kaya Yurieff

Deals & Debuts

See The Information’s Creator Economy Database for an exclusive list of private companies and their investors.

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms told employees it was implementing a hiring freeze and would restructure some teams as it looks to cut costs, Bloomberg reported.

Twitter announced full-screen vertical videos and a feed for users to scroll through. It also added a video carousel to its existing Explore tab, which shows popular tweets and trends. 

Hume, a Los Angeles-based startup that uses music non-fungible tokens to build community around its roster of virtual creators, raised $11.7 million in funding from investment firm TCG Global. 

Minteo, an NFT marketplace, raised $4.3 million in seed funding from investors that include Fabric Ventures, Dune Ventures, CMT Digital and OpenSea Ventures, TechCrunch reported. 

Substack acquired Yem, an email marketing startup helping newsletter writers grow their mailing lists and paid subscribers. This is Substack’s fourth acquisition. It also announced Substack Boost, which will automatically show discounts and special offers to readers at “appropriate moments,” such as when they’re deciding to cancel a paid subscription, in an effort to drive more revenue. 

Studio, a social media app that lets groups of friends share videos with each other, launched on Thursday. This is the latest app to tap into more personal friend connections, the same way as popular BeReal and Locket. 

Instagram is testing a “Notes” feature that lets users post disappearing messages to their followers in the app’s messaging tab. "We’re testing a new feature called Notes so people can quickly share thoughts with their friends, with a small group of people to start,” a Meta spokesperson said. 

OnlyFans announced a $100,000 comedy competition for U.K. and Ireland-based creators to compete to win that sum of money and the chance to appear in a series on OFTV, its free app without adult content. 

The National Basketball Association introduced its redesigned app for Android and iOS featuring a TikTok-style vertical video feed. The feed will show game highlights, behind-the-scenes clips, content made by creators and clips from its partner channels. 

The OG App, an app intended to give users an ad-free and recommendation-free version of an Instagram feed, was pulled from the App Store after Apple discovered the app was accessing Instagram’s service in an unauthorized way, violating its terms of use, a spokesperson for Apple confirmed. 

🏃People on the Move

Jenna Karamanos is now vice president of customer success and experience at Canal, a commerce service for companies and established creator brands. Previously she worked at startups including RaiseMe, a scholarship service, and Handshake, a job board for college students. 

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