Did you know that India’s data usage is among the highest in the world with the average monthly data traffic per user growing at a CAGR of 31 per cent over the last five years to be pegged at 17 gigabyte (GB) per user in December 2021?
According to Nokia’s India Mobile Broadband Index 2022, 4G data traffic increased by 6.5 times while mobile broadband subscribers grew 2.2 times in the last five years.
Hence, it does not come as a surprise that creating content has become a sector in itself with social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Meta (erstwhile Facebook), SnapChat and TikTok among others boasting of millions of individuals who are creating content and, based on their huge following, even monetising their content by way of partnerships and advertisements.
But, while creating content has turned out to be quite lucrative for many, there is a cost attached to content creation and, more often than not, such creators need quick access to funds for quick rollout of content every day.
A bunch of new-age start-ups have realised there is immense opportunity in the content creation space in terms of financing such creators who do not have access to traditional sources of funding like banks as their business model is not going to pass muster with such lenders.
Creators need access to instant financing and some start-ups are offering them not just instant financing but bundling it with taxation-related services, networking and new monetising methods.
“Creator’s potential has been largely untapped and at Cosmofeed we are bridging the gap by building tools for creators to be able to monetise their communities,” says Vivek Yadav, co-founder, Cosmofeed, which claims it is an ‘all-in-one platform for creators’.
Simply put, Gurugram-based Cosmofeed lets creators create free or paid channels, host workshops or events and even launch and sell courses while letting them monetise their content even as creators can withdraw their earnings instantly.
Meanwhile, the start-up charges 10 per cent platform fee from users when they transact.
Given the huge market potential, it is a no-brainer that Cosmofeed is not the only platform that offers such services to the vast creator community.
Start-ups like MoneyyApp, Qoohoo and Rigi among others are some of the platforms in this segment.
MoneyyApp, which states on its website that it makes ‘money management a breeze for creators’, offers compliance management and tax return services apart from streamlining the erratic payment system in the creator economy with easy invoice generation.
“Our predictive engine, which takes data from YouTubers in the form of their channel catalogue, social media earnings and KYC help us identify the ‘market cap’ of a creator,” says Fayyaz Hussain, co-founder, MoneyyApp.
The Bengaluru-based platform also helps creators with growth capital for business purposes and the interest rate on the loan is similar to any normal business loan.
“Our sweet spot is the creator who is on the cusp of making it big and has started earning in the past 6-18 months and is disciplined enough to get a loan with help of our Creator Credit Score,” he adds.
This assumes significance as creating content is indeed a tedious task and involves hours of preparation and financial investment. And, payments are often staggered or delayed with creators often seeing their loan applications getting rejected by banks that rely on traditional credit score systems.
Incidentally, if recent studies are to be believed, then there is a huge scope for growth for both, creators and these start-ups, as the segment is expected to explode in the near future.
A recent report by venture capital major Kalaari Capital points out that there are 448 million active social media users in India and, more importantly, there are 80 million creators – content creators (on social media and OTT), video streamers, influencers and bloggers.
It further stated that there are nearly 1.5 lakh professional content creators in India earning over $200 per month, while few of the breakout stars earning upwards of $100k per month. The VC major pegged the global market size of the creator economy at $104.2 billion.
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