Please welcome Goldenset Collective, a platform to invest in and support the next generation of digital creators
Meet Goldenset Collective, the latest addition to Lerer Hippeau’s portfolio.
HQ: Remote
Founders: Darren Lachtman and Nick Millman
The problem: The creator economy and digital trends are shifting rapidly, and strategists, advertisers, and experts are not keeping up. If the 2000s were about creators building audiences to sell impressions to advertisers, and the 2010s were about creators optimizing engagement to sell conversion for product sales, we’ve now entered a new era. As such, it doesn’t make sense that brands continue to treat digital creators like billboards to be rented. The 2020s are, and will increasingly be, about creators owning and profiting directly from the brands they promote — and in some cases, those companies have massive potential of Fortune 500-esque scale.
Goldenset’s solution: Goldenset Collective supports digital creators by becoming equity partners in their growing and evolving businesses, with the collective goal of creating long-term sales and enterprise value owned by the creators. Goldenset aims to unlock a creator’s potential by helping them scale and monetize their content. To do this, the platform serves as a one-stop shop for equity and capital investment — rather than debt or cash advances — infrastructure and back-office support, and business development services, allowing creators to focus on what they do best — serving as the face and vision behind the brand.
Origin story: We first started working with the Goldenset team many years ago when we invested in their prior ventures, Brat (still active today) and Niche (acquired by Twitter). The team is formidable, with decades of collective experience working for and with top media and technology platforms. Together they saw an opportunity to treat digital creators as the entrepreneurs they are, and develop a platform that provides a range of services that are generally unavailable to them. We are excited to support this duo in their next venture, which we believe is underpinned by a vision that will help bring the creator economy into its next phase of growth.
Why we’re betting on it: Goldenset has already inked partnerships with seven leading digital creators, and is well-positioned to own this space going forward. With favorable talent terms that allow creators to stay creative while maintaining personal financial stability, Goldenset aligns with long-term success rather than short-term profits, and because we’re still early in sculpting a digital future, this sort of model makes sense. Goldenset also functions somewhat like a venture capital firm’s Platform team does — supporting creators like businesses by letting them be the expert in their focus areas, while helping them with everything else.
Our take: The creator economy is still in early innings. Traditional brand structures and agencies are leaving money on the table by not treating digital creators as bona fide businesses, capable of creating long-term value in the same way traditional companies do. As a result, there is a massive mismatch between capital providers and creators. Teams like Goldenset are closing this gap and generating meaningful financial gain for all involved.
Further reading: “Goldenset launches out of stealth to make equity investments in creators” via TechCrunch
