Cameo turns celebrity shoutouts into a marketplace — $5-$3,000 a video, $1B by 2021

In March 2017 Steven Galanis, Martin Blencowe and Devon Townsend launched Cameo in Chicago as a marketplace where fans pay celebrities, athletes and influencers for personalized video messages: birthday greetings, proposals, roasts, pep talks, even coming-out notes. Each personality sets their own price and films a short, lightly scripted message; Cameo collects the payment and keeps 25%.

Prices on the platform ranged from $5 to $3,000. Snoop Dogg — an investor in the company — sold messages for $3,000, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar charged $500 and YouTuber Joe Santagato $55. The company deliberately favored volume over big-ticket sales: the more videos delivered, the more were shared on social media, and the more sharing fed growth without paid marketing.

The volume bet paid off quickly. In December 2018 Cameo recorded roughly 100,000 transactions in a single month; by late June 2019 it was on track to pass 300,000, fulfilling about 2,000 video requests a day with a roster of 15,000 celebrities. CEO Galanis told TechCrunch that revenue was growing five times year over year, and that people were using Cameo 'as often as they used to go to Hallmark to buy a card.'

The pandemic turned direct-to-fan into a mainstream category. In March 2021 Cameo closed a $100 million round at a valuation just over $1 billion, with about two million videos delivered and roughly 80% of standard bookings made as gifts. The funding went into Cameo for Business, paid 'Cameo Calls' video chats, fan clubs and international expansion, with investors including Google, Amazon, SoftBank, UTA and talent like Tony Hawk.