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Cult Artistic, a Malaysian creator economic system firm, has secured a RM500,000 seed funding from The Hive Southeast Asia, a January 4 press launch introduced.
Connecting manufacturers with creators, Cult Artistic makes use of expertise to assist manufacturers in discovering becoming creators, streamlining workflows, and facilitating creator funds.
Shermaine Wong, Cult Artistic’s co-founder and CEO, informed Vulcan Publish that the funding will likely be a catalyst for the event of the startup’s new proprietary creator collaboration platform.
Particularly, they’ve allotted sources to deal with expertise enhancement, consumer expertise optimisation, and scalability. They’ll even be investing in community-building initiatives to empower creators and types.
“The choice to pursue funding for Cult Artistic wasn’t one we took evenly,” Shermaine added. “After overcoming varied challenges and exhibiting vital traction available in the market, we recognised the immense potential of our new mannequin.”
Vital wins embody touchdown model offers with notable firms together with Farm Contemporary, Bata Malaysia, and Pavilion Group.
“It was clear that extra capital would fast-track our creator collaboration platform’s improvement and equip us with the sources to make a much bigger splash within the creator economic system,” the CEO defined.
Based on the press launch, this funding follows a interval of not simply strategic evolution, but additionally overcoming the challenges of the premature passing of Cult Artistic’s co-founder Manisha Jagan Mongan in March 2023.
Contemporary funds for recent concepts
In November 2023, it was introduced that Cult Artistic can be shutting down its job portal app.
This was due to the corporate’s pivot from only a job portal to changing into a extra holistic platform that bridges manufacturers and creators. The previous app had been fairly restricted by way of its expertise, so a brand new platform wanted to be constructed.
As talked about, the recent funds from The Hive Southeast Asia will likely be used to construct this new platform.
“We’re making nice strides in creating the platform and are on monitor to unveil the beta model to the general public throughout the subsequent six months,” Shermaine assured.
On high of constructing a brand new platform, the press launch additionally revealed a brand new mission by the identify of CultPay.
CultPay will likely be an alternate credit score scoring system designed to empower creators to achieve monetary freedom.
Shermaine defined, “Our long-term imaginative and prescient is to offer gig employees with a dependable credit score scoring mechanism and get recognised by conventional monetary establishments to allow them to simply get housing, automobile loans, and bank cards, and even increase their artistic companies.”
CultPay remains to be in its nascent levels, so specifics of it are stored beneath wraps. That mentioned, Shermaine expressed that the group is in search of monetary companions to construct a system that considers a creator’s efficiency, reliability, and contribution to the Cult Artistic creator neighborhood.
The group is aiming to roll out the characteristic throughout the subsequent 12 months.
Two years within the plans
Whereas studying success tales of startups securing investments, it might be straightforward to neglect that behind each fundraising is years and years of labor.
Shermaine shared that it took them two years to safe a “sure”, and that every dialog she had performed a task as a stepping stone within the firm’s journey.
“We’ve been monitoring Cult Artistic for the previous two years, and through this time, the group has persistently demonstrated outstanding resilience and adaptableness,” mentioned Dato Syed Haizam Jamalullail, the managing companion at The Hive Southeast Asia.
The Hive Southeast Asia is a VC fund backed by Palo Alto-based enterprise capital agency The Hive, Tuas Capital Companions, and Sunway.
Apart from Cult Artistic’s resilience, the managing companion additionally identified that the corporate’s affect extends past enterprise metrics, because it contributes to social affect and job creation.
This occurs to be consistent with the target of the mandate that The Hive Southeast Asia has been given beneath Penjana Kapital’s Dana Penjana Nasional Program.
“I counsel entrepreneurs to be unequivocal about their firm’s mission, values, and development technique,” Shermaine shared. “Search buyers who provide extra than simply capital—those that convey strategic worth by way of mentorship and community connections.”
Study extra about Cult Artistic right here.
Learn different articles we’ve written about funding right here.
Featured Picture Credit score: (From left) Watson Tan (The Hive), Lina Esa (Cult Artistic), Shermaine Wong (Cult Artistic), Zhong Han (The Hive)
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