US crowdfunding startup Patreon has raised $15m (£8.8m) of Series A funding from backers including venture capital firm Index Ventures, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and former PayPal president David Marcus.
The company was founded in 2013 as a way to help YouTube stars augment their income from advertising on Google's video service with direct donations from fans. It has since attracted more than 25,000 musicians, authors, filmmakers, journalists and other creators to use its platform.
Co-founder Jack Conte is one half of Pomplamoose, a band whose covers, mash-ups and original songs have been watched nearly 100m times on YouTube. "Our mission as a company is to fund and empower the emerging creative class, and this round of financing will help us do exactly that," said Conte, in a statement.
"Every partner that we add to Patreon, every investor, adviser, and employee, is an advocate of the creatorcentric, creator-first philosophy that Patreon employs."
Patreon works by getting fans to become "patrons" of creators who have signed up to the service, committing to pay small amounts every time they release a new piece of content like a song, video or article. Patreon keeps a 5% share of the donations.
According to Conte, Patreon is signing up 180 new creators a day, and has distributed more than $2m to its community in the 13 months since it launched – with $1m of that coming in the past two months.
As a guide, Conte himself uses Patreon to support his music, and at the time of writing has 1,334 patrons committing a total of $5,337 per video. Creators can also use monthly subscription models: comic creator Zach Weinersmith has 3,213 patrons committing $8,425 a month, for example.
The $15m funding round was led by Index Ventures, with fellow investment firms Charles River Ventures, Thrive Capital, Freestyle Capital, Atlas Ventures and SV Angel also participating. Talent agencies UTA and CAA also chipped in. It follows a $2.1m seed funding round in August 2013.
Conte said that Patreon will be expanding its team and moving into its first proper office, as well as building a mobile app for iOS and Android devices, making its current service "clearer, easier, deeper" and launching new products to help creators.
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