Albert Lucius, founder of TipTip, says that many talented people in Southeast Asia, such as chefs and musicians, can make money from their work online. But many do not have the social media potential to attract advertisers. TipTip wants to help them build a following in their community using an offline/online strategy and monetize them by selling content instead of relying on advertising algorithms. The Indonesia-based startup today announced that it has raised $13 million in Series A funding, eight months after its $10 million Series A round in March.
The final round was led by Eastern Ventures with participation from return investors Vertex, SMDV and BIG Ventures.
Tip Founded in October 2021 by Albert Lucius, his previous startup Kudo was acquired by Grab in 2017. It serves as a marketplace for creators to connect with fans and generate revenue by selling content such as videos and documents to their followers or hosting live video. Sessions.
The platform launched in July and claims revenue has grown 20x since October, with creators earning an average of over $200 per 30 days of being active on TipTip.
TipTip currently has 2,500 content creators and over 30,000 users. The goal is to employ more than 30,000 creators and 300,000 users by early next year. It is currently focused on Indonesia, it is available in 40 cities.
For the people for whom Tip Tip was created, such as local chefs, musicians and artists, they still have a small following and need to build their audience. To enable them to scale and monetize, Tiptip uses a dynamic location strategy in Indonesian cities and towns, helping them host events and activities tailored to their communities.
Lucious, TipTip’s team has seen that since Covid hit, more people have become accustomed to the idea of making money, which has led to a rise in consumption of digital content. According to research from Research & Markets, Digital Journal and Statista, the creative economy in Southeast Asia has a CAGR of 10% to 30%.
But Lucious says many Southeast Asian creators can’t monetize through tools on social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Patreon, which are more suited to top creators who already have a lot of followers and views and can attract advertisers.
Lucious TipTip claims to provide an end-to-end solution for creators that includes digital content management and distribution from social media platforms, live streaming services, one-to-one interaction and direct recommendations. Its platform helps developers with administrative issues like audience management, know-your-customer (KYC), payment systems and scheduling.
“There are many players who are established as industry leaders in these respective areas. We see them as important and helpful to our service. In fact, it’s up to our creators/promoters to continue using external platforms to engage their audience, post updates, promote their freebies out there, and provide links to TipTip to monetize their original content.” We trust,” said Lucius.
Instead of advertising, TipTip offers direct monetization channels through referrals and direct purchases, and takes a cut from all sales on the platform.
Examples of content being shared on TipTip include education in categories such as music. Musicians use the platform to share tips on how to write better songs, and sometimes accompany a live performance. Another example is creators who run multi-part courses on how to become better public speakers that include a live workshop.
TipTip has a network of advertisers that help creators sell their content. Lucius says advertisers act as affiliates or resellers, often selling to their own small communities and each. “It’s like how Uber Eats helps a restaurant sell more food,” Lucius said. “In our case, advertisers help creators sell their digital content.”
To create a pipeline of creators, TipTip uses awareness programs in partnership with its top creators, using offline marketing campaigns and finding key opinion leaders (KOL) or top influencers in each community.
Part of TipTip’s funding round is used to recruit more creators, advertisers and backers. It will also create additional product offerings such as podcasts, product deals and personal inquiries, so creators have more potential revenue channels, and expand its offline/online presence to 250 cities and towns across Indonesia by the middle of next year.
In a statement about the support, Wilson Kua, founder and managing partner of Eastern Ventures, said, “We believe in Albert’s leadership at TipTip. In the year His experience building and running Kudo before it was acquired by Grab in 2017 will be critical to navigating the chaotic economy as we head into 2023. We expect TipTip to continue its exponential growth trajectory on the back of its hyperlocal strategy. For the changing creator and customer behavior in the post-Covid era.
