The company, which uses a technology-driven approach and leverages deep data and artificial intelligence capabilities to help creators distribute their content across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube, has already signed 21 Indian creators for starters, including Kanak’s Kitchen, Triggered Insaan, and Fayçal Khan.
The company plans to recruit around 100 Indian content creators this year across segments with high monetization potential, including entertainment and comedy, food, games, sports, beauty and science tutorials.
“We intend to be the definitive global creative company and our expansion into global markets, including India, is in line with that vision,” said Laurent Hulin, GM-APAC, Jellysmack.
He told ET that India is a priority market for the company and the company realizes that to understand the local market and culture, it needs a strong presence in the country. “We need to have local roots to understand the cultures of our potential creative partners in order to adapt our offers to their needs and desires,” he said. “Today, we’ve only signed 21 creators, and we have a proven technology solution for creator growth on social platforms that no one else has. We’re in for a new creator revolution in India, where designers are the new rock stars. There is a huge opportunity for Jellysmack to take Indian designers to a new level.”
Jellysmack will also expand its recently launched YouTube catalog licensing program to Indian creators, where it offers seed capital to fuel a creator’s new business ideas, brand growth and content creation in return for a license to videos from the creator’s YouTube library. Under this program, Jellysmack will pay out lump sums of $50,000 to $50,000,000 or more to qualified creators.
The company has also recruited former Google and Dentsu executive Vipasha Joshi as country manager and around 25 other employees, whom it expects to triple by the end of this year.
“There is so much untapped potential for creators in India to grow their business,” Joshi said. “We want to support these creative content innovators across India and in vernaculars on how to succeed on more than one social platform.”
Jellysmack helps artists expand their revenue streams by adapting their content to multiple outlets, including YouTube, Facebook, and Snapchat. She added that smartphone penetration and falling data prices, along with prolonged periods of lockdown during lockdown, have led to an explosion in digital video consumption in the country. “Today, more than 2,800 creators have more than a million subscribers. The number was just a handful five years ago,” she said.
“Through our program, we can help these creators grow their following across multiple social platforms, helping them unlock new monetization streams.” Once a creator joins, Jellysmack uses its suite of technology tools and team of experts to edit, optimize and distribute videos to Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube on behalf of the creator. With over 74 million monthly unique viewers and 2 billion organic video views, Jellysmack boasts of working with over 500 of the world’s most influential creators as partners, including megastars PewDiePie, Mr.Beast and Cauet, as well as fan favorites like Patrick Starrr, Bailey Sarian, Nas Daily and Claudipia. Creators powered by Jellysmack have earned more than $150 million to date, the company said.
Launched in 2016 in the United States, the company began its international expansion in May last year. After raising its Series C funding from SoftBank, Jellysmack has now committed $750 million to its global expansion and has since entered key overseas markets such as Brazil, Australia, UK, Germany and Mexico.
