Investors continue to invest large sums in creator economy startups. Influencers themselves are increasingly no longer the focus.
Last year alone, creator economy companies raised almost two billion US dollars (around 1.8 billion euros) in fresh capital. This shows a clear change in strategy: business models that are strongly tailored to individual social media stars are increasingly viewed as unattractive by investors.
In 2025, venture capitalists and private equity firms largely held back from investing in influencer-focused startups. Some of these companies were unable to meet the high growth expectations – prominent examples such as FaZe Clan further increased the skepticism.
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New approaches to social media
Instead, investors are betting on startups that are rethinking social media. These include companies that want to integrate online commerce directly into social feeds, automate the content creation process using AI, or build new, independent online communities.
More than a dozen creative economy start-ups each raised at least $50 million (around €46 million) in 2025, according to an analysis by Business Insider based on PitchBook data. Some of the capital flowed into service providers for creators and marketers – such as talent management companies or direct message marketing platforms. However, the majority of investments went to companies that want to disrupt the industry’s status quo.
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1. AI is changing content creation
More than half of the roughly $2 billion from 13 major funding rounds went to startups developing AI-powered content creation tools. Investors are betting that generative AI will greatly simplify the production of content and put long-term established creative software under pressure.
Several AI-based video, image, music and voice generation providers collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars last year to make these technologies accessible to a broad user base.
2. Online trading is becoming more important
Social commerce is also coming into greater focus. Although online retail in the USA is dominated by established platforms, new providers are increasingly combining online shopping with social formats such as live streams and creator recommendations.
More and more US consumers are purchasing products directly from social feeds, a model that has already proven successful in Asia. TikTok Shop was particularly successful, achieving product sales of over 500 million US dollars (around 460 million euros) in the period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
3. The next big community platform
The market for social networks is currently dominated by a few tech companies. At the same time, many users are growing dissatisfied with algorithmic feeds, which are increasingly dominated by AI content.
It remains to be seen whether this will result in a new generation of successful community platforms. Despite great attention, previous challengers were unable to assert themselves in the long term. Still, venture capitalists continue to invest in new models—particularly in platforms that offer independent creators more control over content, reach, and monetization.
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