19-year-old raises $1 million for TeamDom to monetize influencers

Jake Paul is a 19-year-old Disney star who started a new media company, TeamDom, to help influencers build their brands and make money. TeamDom is announcing today that it has raised $1 million in a funding round led by China’s Danhua Capital.

The Los Angeles company will use the money to hire people, develop and monetize influencer products, create a TV show, and produce more viral content for brands. TeamDom is a social-first media company with a talent label called Team 10.

Other investors include Edward Lando (Horizons Alpha), Gary Vaynerchuk (Vayner Capital), Abe Burns (Sound Ventures & A-Grade Investments), and Adam Zeplain.

TeamDom wants to make Team 10 home to the most powerful group of social media stars and is focused on monetizing their status. The label’s members already have tens of millions of followers. Paul, a star on the Disney Channel sitcom Bizaardvark, has 17 million followers across the various social networks.

Many Team 10 figures came from the company’s boot camp and talent incubator, Team Fuze. Team Fuze identifies potential talent and provides them with the knowledge and resources to learn what it takes to be a social media influencer. Another division, Team X, is an agency built to bridge the gap between American influencers and China’s closed-off social media.

“Social media isn’t just an alternative to traditional media; it’s turning the traditional model on its head and totally shaking up how consumers make decisions. Yet major media companies are struggling to keep up with this shift. That’s where TeamDom comes in,” said Paul, TeamDom CEO and founder, in a statement. “We know the world of social inside and out, and we offer unprecedented expertise, scale and process for this lucrative new frontier.”

Paul said TeamDom has influencers with 40 million followers and 7 billion views.

While social media influencer deals do exist, individuals have dominated the nascent industry, leading to over-representation, inconsistent pricing, and other problems. TeamDom gets influencers to work together as one unit, since influencers working on campaigns by themselves aren’t as successful.

“There’s a huge gap between the teenage entertainment content being provided and that being demanded,” Paul said. “Consumers want advertisements to feel natural and friendly, which is why social media is such an important venue. TeamDom, with the help of our investors and latest funding round, is here to fill that gap.”

Dovey Wan, managing director at Danhua Capital, said in a statement, “Over 70 percent of brands are increasing their social media spend trying to reach Gen Z nowadays. Yet there is a huge vacuum to fill for grass-root influencer. TeamDom is the only player in the marketing space that has this new paradigm baked into its original source — not only a vast network of young influencers but a mighty facilitator to help more young talent rise up.”

Team 10 has worked with brands like Coca-Cola, General Mills, and Pandora. TeamDom has 10 employees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYNE5PYCV2U