Cameo, a Chicago-based startup that connects fans directly with pop culture personalities, has closed $50 million in Series B financing led by Menlo Park, Calif.-based Kleiner Perkins.
Also participating were Los Angeles-based The Chernin Group, Chicago’s Spark Ventures, Boston-based Bain Capital and Series A lead investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, which also operates out of Menlo Park.
The company has built a talent roster of 15,000 athletes, performers, social media influencers and other well-known individuals who have given 275,000 personalized video ‘shout outs’ in the 26 months since the service launched.
The new funds will be used for platform enhancements and an expansion of the company's U.S. and international footprint. Plans call for significantly increasing headcount at a 20-person Los Angeles office that opened in February, ramping up existing operations in the U.K. and Australia, and opening new markets in Europe, Asia and South America. The company also has 66 employees at its Chicago headquarters.
Cameo allows consumers to book celebrities to create personalized video shoutouts ranging from birthday and good luck messages to prom invitations, marriage proposals, baby gender reveals, job offers and pep talks, and send them to recipients' smartphones. Choices run the gamut from NBA all-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to actor Charlie Sheen to “Shark Tank's” Kevin O'Leary.
The company closed a $12.5 million Series A round last November that included rapper Snoop Dogg, who is now on the company's talent roster.
"It's the top of the second inning at Cameo," CEO Steven Galanis said in a statement. "We have an ambitious roadmap that includes developing new, rich conversation features, bolstering our talent roster in key verticals, and aggressively scaling our global presence."
Galanis launched the company with Martin Blencowe and CTO Devon Townsend in 2017.
