It started with a deodorant pitch in a LinkedIn DM. Early YouTube star Caspar Lee tells the story in a TikTok, recalling how a founder messaged him about Wild, an eco-friendly deodorant brand. At first, he ignored it—until his cousin Sasha Kaletsky, then working at Bridgepoint, nudged him to take a closer look. That small seed investment eventually grew into something massive: this April, Wild sold to Unilever for £233 million (around $286 million). That breakout win was just the beginning. In 2019, Kaletsky and Lee co-founded Creator Ventures, a venture capital firm backing early-stage consumer internet startups.
Fast forward to 2025, and the duo has raised a second fund—this time closing at $45 million, more than double the $20 million from their first. And while their roots may lie in content and community, Fund II is betting big on consumer-facing AI.
AI, Apps, and the Next Wave of Consumer Unicorns
With their latest capital, Creator Ventures is zeroing in on where AI meets everyday consumers. The firm already has a strong track record—its first fund backed ElevenLabs, the AI audio company now valued at over $3.3 billion, and Praktika, an AI-powered language learning app. Other portfolio highlights include newsletter platform Beehiiv, fitness app Runna (recently acquired by Strava), and of course, Wild.
Kaletsky believes the consumer AI wave is only just beginning. “There’s a trillion dollars of spend that goes through iOS and Android app stores every year,” he said. “Even if a small slice of that gets eaten by AI apps, you’re looking at a whole new class of unicorns.”
Among the emerging trends he’s watching closely are microdrama streaming platforms, which have long thrived in Asia and are now exploding in the U.S. Apps like ReelShort and DramaBox generated $152 million and $99 million in U.S. in-app purchases respectively so far in 2025—growing over 200% year-on-year. Kaletsky highlights that these platforms charge subscription prices that often exceed Netflix, which shows just how monetizable this genre can be.
The Creator-Startup Feedback Loop
While Creator Ventures doesn’t position itself as a creator economy fund, its origins are deeply intertwined with the world of content creation. Lee, as a former YouTube star, sees strong parallels between today’s founders and the influencers who built platforms from scratch in the 2010s. “A lot of these startup founders are becoming creators themselves,” he said. “That’s something I love being part of.”
One of their more experimental bets is Status, a quirky app where users post updates meant only for AI bots. The platform simulates a social network, but the audience isn’t real—it’s all artificial. Despite its surreal premise, the app has attracted over 1 million global users since its launch earlier this year. Creator Ventures describes it as “Sims meets social media,” and views it as part of the next frontier in consumer engagement.
Fund II is backed by big names, including Level, Cendana, Vintage, Isomer Capital, and Sequoia. Kaletsky noted that many of these LPs hadn’t invested in consumer-first funds for over a decade—a signal that sentiment is shifting.
For Lee, it’s also personal: “It’s nice for us to be able to invest in things our friends and family might actually use.” With a fresh fund and growing momentum, Creator Ventures is positioning itself at the sweet spot where AI innovation meets mass-market appeal.
