According to a recent study from Adobe, one out of four people on the planet is contributing to the creator economy. The massive boost of people looking to diversify their income streams came as a result of the pandemic, leading to an increase in 165M people globally now engaged in this nascent market, fueled by access to affordable equipment and platforms. While this market has grown to $100B+ per year in revenue, competition is intensifying as creators look for ways to increase distribution and revenue while still connecting with their audience. Zurp is a credit card and rewards platform that allows fans to support their favorite creators through their daily spending habits while receiving access to exclusive rewards without expending any additional cash. The card itself is free and Zurp collects only the interchange fee and offers a portion to the creator on a recurring basis while providing them with valuable spending data on their fanbases. The card will launch later this quarter with popular TikTok, YouTube, and e-gaming personalities serving as initial partners. Zurp plans to expand into traditional banking services and maintains an emphasis on financial responsibility and literacy – the cards are secured ensuring that fans are not incurring debt.
AlleyWatch caught up with Zurp Cofounder and Co-CEO Troy Osinoff to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised a $5M pre-seed funding round with participation from New Form, MAGIC Fund, Launchpad VC, OVO Fund, Darling Ventures, and Animal Capital. Strategic investors who joined the round include Scott Belsky, Siqi Chen, Kendrick Nguyen, Michael Brandt, David Weisburd, Amy Wu, Julia Lipton, Baron Davis, Dhani Jones, Nik Sharma, Joshua Cohen, Bobby Goodlatte, Craig Clemens, Lenny Rachitsky, Niklas Jansen, and Dan Becker along with other great investors.
Tell us about the product or service that Zurp offers.
Zurp was created to be the first financial platform to offer a rewards program rooted in unique experiences with influencers of all kinds. The concept behind Zurp is to provide consumers with a means to support their favorite creators or causes without changing daily spending habits, and creators with a new way to reward and interact with fans that creates recurring revenue without requiring additional spend from their fans. Overall, Zurp is building a unique and mutually beneficial – both personally and financially – relationship between fans and influencers.
Zurp’s first product will be the Zurp Card, launching in Q1 2023 in partnership with Mastercard and issued by First Pryority Bank, Member FDIC.
What inspired the start of Zurp?
We saw the passion people had for their favorite creators along with a growing need in the market for financial literacy and realized there’s a hole in the market.
Card programs have relied on points for travel, but lacked the exciting experiences the market is craving. With Zurp, we found a way to offer fun experiences for the users while helping creators monetize as a mutual win. Traditionally, many cards that offer experiences as rewards were designed for individuals with high credit while we’re bringing this unique set of premium perks to the masses.
Creators now have the ability to help their fans build credit, avoid debt, and set up their financial future.
How is Zurp different?
We’re on a mission to provide experience-driven financial services, enabling people to live the life they’ve always wanted. Unlike other credit cards that give users access to boring traditional rewards such as classic travel points or cash back, we focus on rewards that inspire users, in the form of unique experiences. Every swipe with the Zurp Card brings users closer to an unforgettable experience with their favorite Creator, Musician, Athlete, or Artist. And the best is, unlike services such as Patreon that offer exclusive access for a subscription fee, Zurp Card users don’t have to pay their favorite Creators anything to have the chance to get access to exclusive experiences. All they have to do is live their life and use the Zurp card instead of their main spending card.
What market does Zurp target and how big is it?
Zurp is targeting anyone who has a favorite creator, which mostly includes younger generations and those on social media. Millennials, Gen Z, and the generations below them account for more than half of the U.S. population (~166M) as of 2020, and as of this year, there are 302.35M social media users in the U.S.
What’s your business model?
Zurp is free for our customers! We are starting out with focusing on interchange revenue, followed by additional product lines that will open up new revenue streams in the future. We’re positioned in a very unique way for brand activations and partnerships to help grow revenue significantly at scale.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
With the economic slowdown, it is more important than ever to make sure consumers are not going into debt or hurting their credit. We truly believe in helping make sure our users are setting themselves up for their financial futures and we’re building our product to support that.
At the surface, we are offering unique, fun experiences, but the root of everything we do is around financial literacy and success.
What was the funding process like?
We were very intentional with our fundraising. All of our investors have been strategic investors (founders, creators or relevant funds). In order to be successful, we’ve stacked an amazing group of investors together who can advise us on every step of the way.
We’ve brought on founders who have created unicorns, creators who have become top of their platforms and funds who have deep roots in fintech.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Thankfully we’ve brought together an amazing team of serial founders and engineers in FinTech and our investors recognized this. We raised our funding rather quickly and our investors put their full support behind us.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Zurp identifies a compelling gap in the market for successful neobanks and creator monetization tools. We found a way to make the creator/fan relationship financially beneficial for both parties in a fun and innovative way. Zurp will help our users establish positive financial habits by rewarding them with “free”, exclusive experiences with their favorite creators, and will help creators strengthen their relationship with fans at no cost to them while still creating a new stream of revenue. Our experience and creator platform credit card business has a huge opportunity to succeed through this model.
Zurp identifies a compelling gap in the market for successful neobanks and creator monetization tools. We found a way to make the creator/fan relationship financially beneficial for both parties in a fun and innovative way. Zurp will help our users establish positive financial habits by rewarding them with “free”, exclusive experiences with their favorite creators, and will help creators strengthen their relationship with fans at no cost to them while still creating a new stream of revenue. Our experience and creator platform credit card business has a huge opportunity to succeed through this model.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
With the pre-seed investment, we’ll continue building out our creator partnerships and expand the company’s offerings to include banking options, as well as different tiers of credit cards. Zurp is on a mission to become the credit card and bank for unique experiences that consumers cannot buy.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Be as lean as possible to get to your MVP and keep a focus on profitability. Everyone is concerned about where the economy is headed. If an expense can be removed or postponed- do it. Now is not the time to take expensive risks.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We’re currently gearing up for the initial consumer launch of the Zurp Credit Card, the launch partners for which include popular TikTok, YouTube, and e-gaming personalities. Our pipeline for future creator partners spans athletes, record labels, charities, and more, so we anticipate consistent rollouts of new creators who our users can choose to support with their Zurp Credit Card.
