Patreon, the US-based creative payment platform backed by talent agencies CAA and UTA, has raised $60m in series C funding, it confirmed yesterday in a blog post.
Thrive Capital led the round, according to Recode and Variety, and was joined by fellow venture capital firms Index Ventures, CRV, Freestyle Capital and DFJ, the latter investing through its DFJ Growth fund.
Patreon did not reveal a valuation for the round but told Recode a TechCrunch report last week stating it had secured funding at a $450m valuation was incorrect.
Founded in 2013, Patreon operates a platform that allows people to donate money to those who create media or artistic content online, with the company taking a 5% cut from each donation.
About 50,000 creators have accounts on the platform that generate monthly income, from upwards of 1 million active monthly donors, and Patreon expects to process about $150m in donations in 2017.
Patreon CEO Jack Conte said in the blog post disclosing the round that the series C funds will be spent on growing its team and accelerating growth. It also plans to introduce features such as enhanced business infrastructure tools for creators and reward schemes for donors.
The round took Patreon’s overall funding to $107m. CAA and UTA invested in the company’s $15m series A round in 2014 through their CAA Ventures and UTA Ventures units, alongside Index, CRV, Freestyle, Thrive Capital, Atlas Venture and SV Angel.
Patreon had already raised $2.1m in a 2013 seed round featuring SV Angel, Freestyle, CRV, Atlas Venture, Rothenberg Ventures and angel investors Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan and Tyler Willis.
Thrive Capital subsequently led Patreon’s $30m series B round in January 2016, which included Allen and Company, CRV, Index Ventures, Accomplice (formerly known as Atlas Venture) and Freestyle Capital.