The second renaissance is here

Professional creativity has finally gone mainstream. And we knew this day would come. Never before in human history have people been so connected, and the barriers to making amazing content so low. There are over four billion people online, and more than a billion of them have phones that can produce movie studio quality content right in their pocket. That combination of connectivity and creation tools has fueled a creative rebirth the world hasn't seen since da Vinci and Michelangelo picked up their paintbrushes and blew everyone’s minds right out of the 16th century. The creative economy is booming. It seems like every week, a new platform emerges to get creators paid, between the NFTs, Super Follows, virtual chats, tipping, livestreams, and more. Creators are experiencing more success than ever before, and becoming household names. It’s no wonder that 75% of children 6 to 17 chose video creator as their most desired career. Now it’s just as normal to say you want to be a creator when you grow up as a lawyer or a doctor. Our mission has always been to enable creators to do what they love and get paid by the people who love them.

Today, there are over 200,000 creators sharing their work on Patreon, earning over $100M per month from more than 7 million patrons across the world. We’re incredibly humbled by the opportunity to help so many creators pursue their dreams and build passionate communities around them. And we’re just getting started. To kick our mission into high gear, we’ve raised a Series F funding round of $155M at a $4B valuation. That's over three times bigger than where we were just six months ago. This is proof of the incredible power and potential of creators, and of building this new economy. What does this mean? In the simplest terms, it means that we now have the opportunity to expand our ability to power a creator’s evolution and growth. With these additional resources, we’re going to continue focusing on three key areas: enhancing the patron and creator experiences on both mobile and desktop; adding new content consumption tools; and going global. Patreon is — and will continue to be — a place where creators can build their own worlds, on their own terms. And now, those worlds can be as big as a creator can dream.

Patreon is doing more than getting creators paid; the work we’re doing is driving the Second Renaissance that we’ll be experiencing for decades to come, enabling more creators to build businesses doing what they love. As creators ourselves, we understand what these creators need to truly thrive. A new era of creativity is here, one that we’ve championed for years, and we can’t wait to build more of what the future holds for all of us.

* 1,000 individuals surveyed by First Choice Travel, May 2017