{"id":66301,"date":"2024-10-04T17:38:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T09:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=66301"},"modified":"2024-10-04T12:41:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T04:41:01","slug":"clout-kitchen-raises-4-45m-seed-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2024\/10\/04\/clout-kitchen-raises-4-45m-seed-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Clout Kitchen raises $4.45M seed funding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Clout Kitchen, a consumer AI startup with operations in Los Angeles and Manila, announced its $4.45 million seed funding round.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The round was co-led by a16z SPEEDRUN and Peak XV\u2019s Surge \u2013 with participation from Taiwan\u2019s AppWorks, Antler, Hustle Fund, Founders Launchpad, Orvel Ventures, and founders &amp; creators like Gabby Dizon (YGG), Kun Gao (Crunchyroll), Voyboy, Jankos and Perkz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Established in 2024, Clout Kitchen builds creator-powered interactive experiences in gaming and pop culture that unlock new ways for top creators to engage and expand their fan base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clout Kitchen is led by serial gaming and creator economy builders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Justin Gorriceta-Banusing (CEO) founded and scaled AcadArena (SEA and LatAm\u2019s leading campus gaming platform) to series A and an exit while in college. In high school, they built CONQuest Festival \u2013 the largest creator event in SEA with 80K+ attendees.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Marcel Feldkamp (CBO) was a pioneering League of Legends pro\/creator, playing in the 2013 World Championship. After retiring, he founded the gaming talent agency Prime \u2013 who later joined United Talent Agency via Press X.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clout Kitchen\u2019s first product is Backseat AI, an in-game \u201cbuddy\u201d for League of Legends co-built with Tyler \u201cTyler1\u201d Steinkamp \u2013 one of the world\u2019s biggest gaming content creators with over 20 million followers. Backseat AI is Riot-compliant and guides players on how to best play the game in real-time \u2013 from what characters to pick to which items to buy, all by an AI voice twin of their favorite creator. Since launching early access testing in June, the product has hit over 45,000 waitlist signups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOur thesis at Clout Kitchen is to build things that grow the pie and add value for fans, creators, and game developers alike,\u201d said Justin Banusing, CEO, Clout Kitchen. \u201cWe grew up in this space, so it\u2019s our way of giving back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pricing starts at US$4.99 monthly for each creator \u201cbuddy,\u201d who earns from every subscription. Backseat AI\u2019s buddies roster continues to expand with streamer &amp; cosplayer Emiru and pro player Jankos \u2013 with more top creators lined up in the coming months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAs a creator myself, I know how difficult it is to keep your community and business growing,\u201d said Marcel Feldkamp, CBO, Clout Kitchen. \u201cIt\u2019s easy when you\u2019re starting and have all the time in the world \u2013 but it gets harder to keep giving the same love to everyone as you scale. We want to solve that problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With this financing round, Clout Kitchen looks to expand Backseat by scaling its team, establishing its US office, and building out its shared internal tech stack for future creator-powered game companion apps and experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAs a gamer and a creator myself, I\u2019m excited to support Justin and Team Clout Kitchen in their journey to unlock new frontiers for our community,\u201d said Jamie Lin, Chairman &amp; Partner, AppWorks,\u201c Justin and the founding team showcased exceptional hearts, heads and hands from the moment we met them, the very traits we look for in founders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;At a16z, we believe in the transformative power of technology and games to reshape how we connect, create, and experience the world. Clout Kitchen embodies this vision wholly, and we are thrilled to support their journey as they pioneer new ways for fans to engage with the creators and games they love,&#8221; said Jack Soslow, Investment Partner, A16Z GAMES.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The round was co-led by a16z SPEEDRUN and Peak XV\u2019s Surge \u2013 with participation from Taiwan\u2019s AppWorks, Antler, Hustle Fund, Founders Launchpad, Orvel Ventures, and founders &#038; creators like Gabby Dizon (YGG), Kun Gao (Crunchyroll), Voyboy, Jankos and Perkz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":66304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[96,2727,1656],"class_list":["post-66301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-technology","tag-technology-adaption","tag-technology-investment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}