Eric Wei, who was a product manager for Instagram Live, has teamed up with an investor, Will Kim, to introduce Karat, a startup that has already launched its first product: the Karat Black Card.
To go into detail, it is a card created to offer benefits to influencers and content creators on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Twitch, among other social networks. These are your benefits and requirements to be able to acquire one.
Karat and her credit card different from those already known
According to its creators, the main reason for this card is to offer a payment method with characteristics different from those known in other companies. For example, they want to focus its use on users who are not used to using these payment methods and who also do not obtain good benefits in common banking entities.
Wei, for his part, emphasizes that despite the fact that many creators have significant incomes, banks rarely understand their businesses u offer them good terms when they need capital to invest. So, after seeing the problems, they have exposed the business model and for that reason they have achieved a collection of 4.6 million dollars in seed funds from Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, SignalFire, YC, CRV and Coatu.
In order to acquire this new card, the influencer must have more than 100,000 followers in his account. Based on this requirement, the company will verify its numbers in the social network where it creates content: if the user is from Instagram, the number of followers, reach and advertising agreements will be imported. On YouTube, for example, total subscribers and advertising revenue are analyzed. In the case of Twitch, they will see the subscribers, donations and advertising agreements. Finally, on TikTok, the followers, likes and views of the videos will be important.
As one of the owners of the company has highlighted: We are building a vertical business and financial operations experience. Traditional banks care a lot about FICO [puntajes de crdito], and many YouTubers said, when they’re blowing up, they don’t have time to think.
From Tech Crunch they also let it be known that there are more than 1 million content creators who have more than 100,000 followers or subscribers, so the business market is quite wide.
For now, the card has already been delivered to creators of the stature of TheRussianBadger, TierZoo Y Nas Daily. New influencers are expected to be on Karat’s list in the coming weeks.
