Cult Creative secures seed funding from The Hive Southeast Asia

Cult Inventive, a Malaysian creator financial system firm, has secured a RM500,000 seed funding from The Hive Southeast Asia, a January 4 press launch introduced.

Connecting manufacturers with creators, Cult Inventive makes use of expertise to assist manufacturers in discovering becoming creators, streamlining workflows, and facilitating creator funds.

Shermaine Wong, Cult Inventive’s co-founder and CEO, instructed Vulcan Put up that the funding can be a catalyst for the event of the startup’s new proprietary creator collaboration platform.

Particularly, they’ve allotted sources to give attention to expertise enhancement, person expertise optimisation, and scalability. They’ll even be investing in community-building initiatives to empower creators and types.

“The choice to pursue funding for Cult Inventive wasn’t one we took frivolously,” Shermaine added. “After overcoming numerous challenges and exhibiting vital traction available in the market, we recognised the immense potential of our new mannequin.”

Vital wins embody touchdown model offers with notable corporations together with Farm Contemporary, Bata Malaysia, and Pavilion Group.

“It was clear that further capital would fast-track our creator collaboration platform’s improvement and equip us with the sources to make a much bigger splash within the creator financial system,” the CEO defined.

In line with the press launch, this funding follows a interval of not simply strategic evolution, but additionally overcoming the challenges of the premature passing of Cult Inventive’s co-founder Manisha Jagan Mongan in March 2023.

Contemporary funds for contemporary concepts

In November 2023, it was introduced that Cult Inventive could be shutting down its job portal app.

This was due to the corporate’s pivot from only a job portal to turning into a extra holistic platform that bridges manufacturers and creators. The previous app had been fairly restricted when it comes to its expertise, so a brand new platform wanted to be constructed.

As talked about, the contemporary funds from The Hive Southeast Asia can be used to construct this new platform.

“We’re making nice strides in growing the platform and are on observe to unveil the beta model to the general public inside the subsequent six months,” Shermaine assured.

On prime of constructing a brand new platform, the press launch additionally revealed a brand new challenge by the title of CultPay.

CultPay can be an alternate credit score scoring system designed to empower creators to achieve monetary freedom.

Shermaine defined, “Our long-term imaginative and prescient is to offer gig staff with a dependable credit score scoring mechanism and get recognised by conventional monetary establishments to allow them to simply get housing, automotive loans, and bank cards, and even develop their inventive companies.”

CultPay remains to be in its nascent phases, so specifics of it are stored underneath wraps. That stated, Shermaine expressed that the staff is in search of monetary companions to construct a system that considers a creator’s efficiency, reliability, and contribution to the Cult Inventive creator neighborhood.

The staff is aiming to roll out the characteristic inside the subsequent 12 months.

Two years within the plans

Whereas studying success tales of startups securing investments, it might be straightforward to overlook that behind each fundraising is years and years of labor.

Shermaine shared that it took them two years to safe a “sure”, and that every dialog she had performed a task as a stepping stone within the firm’s journey.

“We’ve been monitoring Cult Inventive for the previous two years, and through this time, the staff has persistently demonstrated exceptional resilience and adaptableness,” stated Dato Syed Haizam Jamalullail, the managing companion at The Hive Southeast Asia.

The Hive Southeast Asia is a VC fund backed by Palo Alto-based enterprise capital agency The Hive, Tuas Capital Companions, and Sunway.

Other than Cult Inventive’s resilience, the managing companion additionally identified that the corporate’s affect extends past enterprise metrics, because it contributes to social affect and job creation.

This occurs to be in step with the target of the mandate that The Hive Southeast Asia has been given underneath Penjana Kapital’s Dana Penjana Nasional Program.

“I counsel entrepreneurs to be unequivocal about their firm’s mission, values, and development technique,” Shermaine shared. “Search buyers who supply extra than simply capital—those that deliver strategic worth by way of mentorship and community connections.”

• Study extra about Cult Inventive right here.
• Learn different articles we’ve written about funding right here.

Featured Picture Credit score: (From left) Watson Tan (The Hive), Lina Esa (Cult Inventive), Shermaine Wong (Cult Inventive), Zhong Han (The Hive)