FaintFlex Vol. 5 - The Influencer Incubator Landscape
Can Ruhnn Holding's model work in the US?
Alibaba-backed Ruhnn Holding, China’s largest digital influencer brand incubator and talent agency, officially raised $125 million in their IPO this week on Nasdaq. They’re the business team behind China’s top key opinion leader Zhang Dayi.
Ruhnn’s model is unique compared to US counterparts because instead of only working with creators that are already huge, they plan on spending 30% of net proceeds to identify & cultivate emerging influencers to build e-commerce brands around.
If you know me, I’m all about discovering the next rising star before they’re an obvious success. So I would love for this model to exist here, however I predict it will be an expansion strategy of an existing player rather than a brand new company.
Or maybe even a private equity-style influencer agency, marketplace, & brand incubator roll up of existing companies.
Since I’ve been asked by a few people if this full-service model could work in the US, I decided to put together a quick landscape of the notable influencer brand incubators here. It’s organized by what appears to be their core vertical and does not include general merch partners like Killer Merch, Represent, Fanjoy, etc.
How I see it, the general thesis for this model is to have a portfolio of niche, ~$10M brands that have the potential to become a billion dollar collective. Influencer incubators are usually structured as an equity & profit sharing agreement between the personality and incubator.
Please reply/reach out if I missed someone or if you happen to be working on a startup within the space.
Beauty
Kendo Brands Group (Originally spun out of Sephora & now owned by LVMH)
HipDot (launching first collection Spring 2019)
General / CPG
Fashion
Hybrid (Agency/Management/Incubator)
*Last year, Upfront VC’s Hamet Watt and Halle Berry announced a startup studio partnership called Share Ventures. Not clear on what it will entail.
Content of the Week
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Brat co-founder Rob Fishman discussed their revenue model on Recode Media.
Parklu discusses how Multi-Channel Networks (MCNs) work in China.
Thanks for reading! Hopefully I can find a designer for my next landscape :) Let me know if this sparked a thought, and please share if you enjoyed it.
- Aaron