Industry landscapes
Industry report

Funding and advertised pay are reported in USD; filed accounts retain their stated source currency and basis.

Exchange-rate basis

Indicative conversions use ECB reference rates dated 2026-09-14, applied consistently across all periods. They are not historical exchange rates. Indian rupees may use crore (1 crore = 10 million); other currencies use K, M and B. CSV downloads, source documents and quoted news headlines retain their original currencies.

THE NEW YORK CITY EDITION 2026

New York City’s
creator economy industry,
in focus.

The companies, capital and talent shaping creator economy in New York City. Find the leaders. Understand the segments. See where the activity is.

Snapshot: Funding in USD
Illustrated cover for Creator Economy Industry Landscape of New York City
US
COMPANIES · CAPITAL · TALENT

An industry ecosystem,
measured in context.

Creator Economy illustration
MEET THE COMPANIES

Explore New York City’s creator economy leaders

24 featured companies from the funding, hiring, revenue and team-size leaderboards.

Expand panel +
Creator Economy company highlights in New York City, snapshot 2 September 2026
Company
OpenSeaopensea.io$427.22M—857—
Outbrainoutbrain.com$403.72M—136$1.3BFYFY2025 filing
Minute Mediaminutemedia.com$250.8M—38—
Fotoliafotolia.com$225.2M—15—
Whistle Sportswhistlesports.com$172.63M———
Luminaryluminarypodcasts.com$165.57M—18—
Taboolataboola.com$160M11 roles281Financial figure available in RadarView in Radar
Giphygiphy.com$152.44M—181—
Littera Educationlitteraeducation.com—6 roles2—
Chartbeatchartbeat.com—4 roles87—
Tutored by Teacherstutored.live—4 roles37—
Gen Videogen.video—3 roles30—
Kobalt Musickobaltmusic.com—3 roles514—
Shutterstockshutterstock.com—3 roles1,274$989.92MFYFY2025 filing
Songtrustsongtrust.com—2 roles161—
Archive of Our Ownarchiveofourown.org————
Blipblip.com————
DistroKiddistrokid.com——720—
FLUVIPfluvip.com——108—
Firsthandfirsthand.co——150—
Fohrfohr.co——102—
General Assemblygeneralassemb.ly——43—
Luna Medialunamedia.io——47—
Poets.orgpoets.org——33—
24 featured companies

Locked revenue figures are available in Radar; the eight company financial previews stay the same throughout this page. A dash means the figure is outside these featured lists. Revenue years vary by company; the figures are not a like-for-like revenue comparison. Compare annual accounts ↗

Company discovery

Recorded evidence only
THE KEY SIGNALS

Creator Economy industry KPIs in New York City

A few useful ratios bring the size of this ecosystem into perspective.

2 September 2026
Hiring participation5.2%

27 of 515 tracked companies have open roles.

Funding participation27.0%

139 of 515 tracked companies have a recorded round.

Top 3 funding share37.8%

Share of disclosed capital received by the three largest recorded recipients.

Median disclosed round$2M

Midpoint of 161 rounds with a disclosed amount.

Scale is concentrated. Opportunity is broader. The three largest funding recipients hold 37.8% of disclosed capital, while 73.0% of tracked companies have no recorded funding round.

Explore the segments →
CAPITAL & COMPANY FORMATION

How New York City creator economy has grown

Recorded company formation and disclosed funding across the complete annual series shown.

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2016 — 2025

Disclosed funding by year

Sum of recorded funding rounds · USD

New York City creator economy
$0$128.71M$257.41M$386.12M$514.82M2016: $203.62M20162017: $76.23M20172018: $210.84M20182019: $118.02M20192020: $102.85M20202021: $451.6M20212022: $439.89M20222023: $50.2M20232024: $112.14M20242025: $17.59M2025
View the numbers
Annual creator economy funding and company formation in New York City
YearFunding (USD)FoundedRaising
2016$203.62M2410
2017$76.23M3415
2018$210.84M3714
2019$118.02M4313
2020$102.85M4916
2021$451.6M5120
2022$439.89M4631
2023$50.2M2612
2024$112.14M115
2025$17.59M63
WHERE CAPITAL SITS

Funding concentration

Share of all disclosed company funding.

  • OpenSea14.9%
  • Outbrain14.1%
  • Minute Media8.8%
  • Other companies62.2%

Funding by stage

190 recorded rounds since 2016

NUMBER OF ROUNDS
Seed & Angel96 50.5%
Series A–B52 27.4%
Series C+ / PE16 8.4%
Grants, debt & other26 13.7%

Recent recorded rounds

Latest recorded rounds · USD
3 rounds

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

Series B03/2026
GlobalComix $13M

Backed by SBI US Gateway Fund and Point72 Ventures.

Largest and notable recorded rounds

Each card is one recorded round
10 cards

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

Series D10/2016
Giphygiphy.com$72M

Backed by IVP and China Media Capital and others.

Series C02/2016
Giphygiphy.com$55M

Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst and others.

THE BUSINESS BEHIND THE ACTIVITY

Revenue, profitability & financial strength

Annual accounts for reporting companies linked to this landscape, on like-for-like currency and reporting bases.

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USD · millions · consolidated

Display conversions use the dated reference rates above. Where a verified rate is unavailable, figures retain their source currency. Each reporting cohort keeps its currency and accounting basis separate.

FY2025 · company accounts; aggregate reporting threshold not met · 2 reporting entities from 2 eligible matches.

Revenue in covered accounts—

Sum of reporting-entity revenue; not New York City market sales.

Net profit / loss—

Combined result for the same cohort.

Aggregate net margin—

Combined net income ÷ combined revenue.

Median company revenue—

The middle covered reporting entity.

Profitable entities—

None of 2 covered entities.

Top-five concentration—

Share of covered revenue from the five largest entities.

Annual account trend

Reported cohort totals by year; coverage is stated for every period.

Bar height shows revenue. Changes in coverage can affect totals.

Profitability has two perspectives

FY2025 · 2 reporting entities

Open the company accounts

Up to eight fixed company previews show financial amounts. Search and sort the wider company list, then continue in Radar.

2 reporting entities
Continue your financial research in Radar

Explore full company accounts and filings.

View financials in Radar ↗
NEW YORK CITY · INDUSTRY COHORTS

How does creator economy compare?

Each pair uses the same year, currency and reporting basis. Cohort overlap is disclosed.

IndustryCovered / eligibleRevenue totalMedian revenueNet profit / lossAggregate marginProfitable shareOverlap

Available-account cohorts are not estimates of whole industries. Overlapping entities can occur in more than one cohort; do not add cohort totals.

Coverage, calculations & financial sources

Filed annual accounts for exact designated national identifiers. Every aggregate and peer pair uses one fiscal year, source currency and reporting basis; periods, coverage and overlap are explicit; 2026 partials are excluded.

The same up to eight reporting entities remain open across years, filters and sorts. Other company figures are available in Radar.

Source currencies and accounting bases stay separate. Missing accounts are excluded rather than treated as zero. Exact reporting periods appear on company previews. Annual totals can change with coverage and do not measure growth of a fixed company cohort.

DIGITAL FOOTPRINT

Web traffic, app reach and release cadence

How the New York City companies on this page show up online: the sites people visit, the apps they install, and how often those apps ship.

Busiest websites

19 of the 515 companies on this page carry a measured traffic record (3.7%); these are the largest of those, by monthly visits. The median among them is 1,619,930 visits.

CompanyMonthly visitsAuthorityMobile
Archive of Our Ownarchiveofourown.org531,727,7447691.1%
Taboolataboola.com102,683,1455387.6%
Shutterstockshutterstock.com87,815,56010050.4%
Outbrainoutbrain.com38,506,6584881.8%
Giphygiphy.com24,230,4988955.2%
DistroKiddistrokid.com13,930,4825845.5%
OpenSeaopensea.io10,091,4675929.3%
GlobalComixglobalcomix.com4,272,0654687.4%
Chartbeatchartbeat.com1,842,493420.3%
Poets.orgpoets.org1,619,9306548.5%

Visits and authority are third-party web estimates, not company-reported figures.

Most-installed apps

42 of these companies (8.2%) publish at least one Android app — 57 apps in all, carrying 451.1M installs between them.

AppInstallsRatingStore category
StartTaboola136.1M3.5Personalization
Wallpaper CarouselTaboola121.6M4.1Entertainment
GIPHY: GIFs, Stickers & ClipsGiphy67.3M3.8Video Players & Editors
Live lock screenTaboola32.4M2.2Entertainment
YouNow: Live Stream & Go LiveYouNow29.9M4.3Social
Live lock screenTaboola25.6M1.5Entertainment
Shutterstock ContributorShutterstock8.2M3.7Photography
Cymath - Math Problem SolverCymath7.3M4.3Education
OpenSea: Trade Crypto & NFTsOpenSea5.3M3.7Finance
Shutterstock - Image & VideoShutterstock5.1M4.1Productivity

Installs are lifetime totals to date at the June 2026 store reading — a measure of reach, not of people using an app today.

App reach by segment

The busiest app inside each of this page’s own segments, with the quarterly release trend behind it (2023Q2–2025Q4).

SegmentAppsInstallsLeading appRelease trend
Tech For Digital Publishers10316.5MStart 136.1M
Marketingtech13316.2MWallpaper Carousel 121.6M
Adtech7315.7MLive lock screen 32.4M
Online Photos580.7MGIPHY: GIFs, Stickers & Clips 67.3M
Social Platforms371.9MQuack: Communities & Creators 4.5M
Ott Video931.9MYouNow: Live Stream & Go Live 29.9M
Video Creation Tools213.3MShutterstock Contributor 8.2M
K-12 Edtech97.6MCymath - Math Problem Solver 7.3M

A company can carry several segment tags, so these rows overlap and should not be added together. Trend lines are zero-based and share one quarter grid, so a flat line is a quiet segment, not a missing one.

Release cadence by quarter

New apps published, beside apps whose most recent update landed in that quarter — the second bar is how much of the shelf is still being maintained.

2023Q1: 42023Q1: 02023Q12023Q2: 12023Q2: 12023Q22023Q3: 22023Q3: 52023Q32023Q4: 32023Q4: 12023Q42024Q1: 22024Q1: 02024Q12024Q2: 22024Q2: 02024Q22024Q3: 52024Q3: 32024Q32024Q4: 22024Q4: 02024Q42025Q1: 22025Q1: 92025Q12025Q2: 12025Q2: 32025Q22025Q3: 12025Q3: 32025Q32025Q4: 22025Q4: 02025Q4

Darker bars are new releases, lighter bars apps updated. 55 of 57 apps carry a release date. The series ends at 2025Q4, the last quarter that closed before the June 2026 reading.

INSIDE THE INDUSTRY

The New York City creator economy market map

Explore the segments behind the headline numbers.

Expand panel +

Where companies are building

Rank segments by scale, hiring or disclosed funding.

Consumer digital413
Enterprise tech181
Marketplaces108
Fintech93
Web 3.088
Decentralized finance86
Blockchain in financial services83
Edtech78
Online tutoring72
Saas70
B2c e-commerce69
Enterprise software59

Companies can sit in several segments. Counts and funding overlap.

SEGMENT TO EXPLORE

Consumer digital

The largest measured segment in this report snapshot.

413companies
5.1%have hiring activity

21 companies hiring · $1.89B disclosed funding

Explore in Radar

How companies make money

Common revenue models; a company can use more than one.

Subscription390
Advertising180
Commission on transaction150
E-commerce - service76
E-commerce - product42
Fee-for-service41
Sponsorship29
Freemium24
THE COMPANIES IN MOTION

Who is listing, hiring leaders, launching and winning work

Recorded corporate activity linked to companies in this landscape.

Expand panel +
Recent corporate headlines 10 dated reports
Funding roundsrobotera.io ↗

Chinese robotics company ROBOTERA raised RMB 1 billion (about $145 million) in a new funding round, pushing its valuation above RMB 10 billion. The round included major investors such as Gaocheng Capital, Singtel Innov8, Woori Venture Partners, and CICC Porsche Fund. Existing backers, including CDH Venture and Growth Capital, and Tsinghua Holding Tiancheng Asset Management, also increased their investments.

Funding roundsglobalcomix.com ↗

GlobalComix raises $13M in Series A funding for digital comics platform

Mergers & acquisitionskobaltmusic.com ↗

Primary Wave is in advanced talks to acquire Kobalt Music Group.

Mergers & acquisitionsdistrokid.com ↗

MBW reported that the company has enlisted Raine Group and Goldman Sachs to drum up a potential $2bn-plus acquisition.

Mergers & acquisitionsluminarypodcasts.com ↗

Luminary Crown Ltd has expressed interest in acquiring a 24% stake at a significantly higher price than the trading price.

Mergers & acquisitionsmeetcute.com ↗

and purchased scripted rom‑com podcast platform Meet Cute, which it intends to mine for projects across multiple platforms.

Mergers & acquisitionsjuliusworks.com ↗

Julius, a leading offshore digital marketing agency connecting U.S. companies with top-tier Latin American talent, has officially acquired HippoThinks, a former content strategy firm known for driving visibility for innovators and global organizations.

Mergers & acquisitionsminutemedia.com ↗

Minute Media, a leading global technology and sports content company, today announced its acquisition of VideoVerse.

Mergers & acquisitionslionize.ai ↗

gen.video, a leader in video‑powered commerce and influencer marketing, has acquired Lionize, the AI‑driven influencer recruitment platform known for automating creator discovery and contracting across TikTok and Instagram.

Mergers & acquisitionschartbeat.com ↗

Chartbeat, a media operations software platform backed by Cuadrilla Capital, has acquired FatTail, an advertising revenue management software provider.

Full recorded event mix

Top 10 categories among 102 recorded events in the 24-month window.

Leadership moves
27
Mergers & acquisitions
19
Funding rounds
16
Earnings
12
New products
8
Company announcements
6
Lawsuit
4
Regulatory
3
Capital infusions
2
Buyback
1
6 activity cards

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

Leadership moves

10 tracked people moves

Taboola ↗
Krishan Bhatia

Appointment Chief Business Officer

Too Lost ↗
Jen Ferrer

Promotion Director of Commercial & Artist Strategy

Too Lost ↗
Nate Fisher

Appointment Director of Research & Label Acquisition

Too Lost ↗
Mark VanAtta

Appointment Vice President of Finance

Blip ↗
Natalia Zeferino G. Briotto

Appointment Global HR Director

Blip ↗
Nataly Zeferino G. Briotto

Appointment Global Director of HR

ONErpm ↗
Nuno Rocha

Appointment Head of Business Development

Fohr ↗
Scott Levy

Appointment Chief Revenue Officer

Product launches

Products, platforms and features in the recorded window

AI Video Generator

AI Video Generator

Taboola ↗
Realize

Platform

Taboola ↗
Motion Ads

Advertising feature

Contract wins

1 recorded customer wins

Julius ↗

Customer: Eko Organic Food Industries LimitedAgro-processing

Workforce actions

1 companies with reported reductions

DistroKid ↗

37 roles

Regulatory events

3 recorded events

Provisional finding that the merger is not expected to result in competition issues in the global Stock content market; may result in substantial lessening in UK Editorial marketUK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)

Review progressesU.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice

Litigation

3 tracked suits

Company
UK regulators v shutterstock, getty images

phase 2 investigation into mergerRegulatory ·

Company
Competition and Markets Authority v getty images, shutterstock

Competition concerns in Getty Images–Shutterstock mergerRegulatory · Ongoing

Earnings pulse

Reported company results in the recorded window.

3companies
15period observations
0.4%median reported growth

Median across 12 reported growth observations; companies may contribute multiple periods.

Mergers and acquisitions

Company-linked deal reports; status is preserved as recorded.

Acquirer → targetStatusDateValue / context
getty images→Shutterstock ↗Announced2026-04-16Not stated in snapshot
primary wave→Kobalt Music ↗Rumored2026-03-02$1.5B
Na→DistroKid ↗Rumored2026-02-02$2.0B
DistroKid→NaRumored2026-01-31$2.0B
DistroKid→bandzoogleCompleted2026-01-31Not stated in snapshot
Luminary→Auri Grow India LimitedRumored2025-12-17Not stated in snapshot

A discussion or rumour is not a completed transaction. An unstated value is not zero.

PEOPLE & OPPORTUNITY

The talent market

724 postings in the preceding 12 months. The full 1,471-posting snapshot covers 62 employers.

Expand panel +

Most advertised job titles

Nonclinical Writer88
Data Scientist, Marketing25
Senior Medical Writer (Remote)24
Digital Marketing Short Course17
Software Engineering Bootcamp16
User Experience Design Bootcamp14
0 internship postings

218 tracked postings mention remote work.

The seniority mix

492 postings specify a level.

unspecified
979
senior
235
manager
201
lead
44
intern
12

Skills employers mention

Top skills across 1,471 tracked postings in the available jobs snapshot.

Python
26
React
24
Java
16
Typescript
14
Aws
14
Salesforce
14
Blockchain
14
Javascript
12
C#
11
Microsoft Office Suite
11
ADVERTISED PAY$170.0K/ year

Median across 177 postings with pay data, expressed in USD.

THE PEOPLE BUILDING THE FIELD

Founders and leaders

267 founders and chief executives across 195 companies.

Expand panel +
12 profiles

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

Education networks

59 profiles with education records.

Columbia University
12
Harvard University
8
Stanford University
6
Harvard Business School
6
Tel Aviv University
5
Columbia Business School
4
University of Chicago
4
University of Pennsylvania
4

Prior employers

14 profiles with prior-work records.

Google
4
Goldman Sachs
3
Morgan Stanley
2
Microsoft
2
McKinsey
1
Cisco
1
Facebook
1

Profiles cover recorded founders and leaders; contact details remain in Radar.

UNDERSTAND THE LANDSCAPE

Creator Economy in New York City: key questions

Clear definitions for making better comparisons.

What does this landscape measure?

It measures the tracked company ecosystem, recorded funding, hiring and other available evidence. It is not a market-size estimate.

Can segment counts be added together?

No. A company can belong to several segments, so segment counts and funding can overlap.

What does a missing figure mean?

A dash or unavailable panel means the current reviewed source snapshot does not support that figure.

Company ecosystem snapshot: 2 September 2026. Funding is recorded in USD; filed accounts retain their stated currency and reporting basis. Each section identifies its own coverage. The news and research behind these sections is explorable in Prism.

Canonical landscape ↗
Coming soon