Private Markets, Angel and Secondary Investing, Sacra

Sacra

Private Markets, Angel and Secondary Investing

Bringing transparency to private markets so investors, founders, and employees can build on conviction. Sacra delivers deeply researched insights on the private companies shaping tomorrow's markets. By surfacing the data, context, and operator perspective that are missing from private markets today, we help secondary buyers and sellers price equity accurately and unlock liquidity for the people building these businesses.

Private Capital Markets

<ul><li>Stan hit $27M annual recurring revenue (ARR) in March 2024, growing ~20% month-over-month every month in Q1'24 from $15M ARR at the end of 2023.</li><li>Stan found product-market fit with the education-focused creator segment—not professionals that sell $10,000+ courses on Kajabi & Thinkific (TSX: THNCF)—but the rapidly growing population of ~10,000 follower spirituality teachers, passive income gurus and social media coaches hanging out and monetizing their followings on Instagram and TikTok.</li><li>Word of mouth and referral on high engagement and high growth social platforms has Stan's growth accelerating as its revenue has scaled, mimicking the hypergrowth of link-in-bio startups like Linktree (40M+ users) but monetizing harder at the premium price point of $29/mo.</li></ul>

Stan hit $27M annual recurring revenue (ARR) in March 2024, growing ~20% month-over-month every month in Q1'24 from $15M ARR at the end of 2023.Stan found product-market fit with the education-focused creator segment—not professionals that sell $10,000+ courses on Kajabi & Thinkific (TSX: THNCF)—but the rapidly growing population of ~10,000 follower spirituality teachers, passive income gurus and social media coaches hanging out and monetizing their followings on Instagram and TikTok.Word of mouth and referral on high engagement and high growth social platforms has Stan's growth accelerating as its revenue has scaled, mimicking the hypergrowth of link-in-bio startups like Linktree (40M+ users) but monetizing harder at the premium price point of $29/mo.

<ul><li>Launched by ex-Morning Brewers (acquired by Business Insider for $75M) in November 2021, Beehiiv built for the emerging trend of business gurus launching newsletter brands like Shaan Puri’s Milk Road (sold for $10M after 12 months with 250K subs) and LeQwane Lynch’s The Alerts Daily (sold to Overtime with 35K subs).</li><li>Sacra estimates that Beehiiv is at $13M in annualized revenue as of April, up 450% year-over-year (for a 17x multiple on their $224M valuation per their current Wefunder round) with 70% of revenue coming from subscription SaaS and 30% coming from ads via Ad Network, which they launched in Q3’23.</li><li>Beehiiv’s current growth momentum puts them on a potential trajectory to pass Substack and ConvertKit in revenue in 2026, pushing both Substack and ConvertKit to innovate by hybridizing their business models across subscription SaaS and ads and deepening their creator & sponsor networks.</li></ul>

Launched by ex-Morning Brewers (acquired by Business Insider for $75M) in November 2021, Beehiiv built for the emerging trend of business gurus launching newsletter brands like Shaan Puri’s Milk Road (sold for $10M after 12 months with 250K subs) and LeQwane Lynch’s The Alerts Daily (sold to Overtime with 35K subs).Sacra estimates that Beehiiv is at $13M in annualized revenue as of April, up 450% year-over-year (for a 17x multiple on their $224M valuation per their current Wefunder round) with 70% of revenue coming from subscription SaaS and 30% coming from ads via Ad Network, which they launched in Q3’23.Beehiiv’s current growth momentum puts them on a potential trajectory to pass Substack and ConvertKit in revenue in 2026, pushing both Substack and ConvertKit to innovate by hybridizing their business models across subscription SaaS and ads and deepening their creator & sponsor networks.

Beehiiv Vs. ConvertKit Vs. Substack Vs. Mailchimp

<ul><li>OnlyFans’ 100x growth from $56M gross revenue in 2019 to $5.6B in 2022 gave rise to a wave of companies counter-positioned as safe-for-work (SFW) creator storefronts like Stan and Fanhouse (both founded in 2020).</li><li>Passes launched as a “soft R”, banning nudity but allowing creators like Instagram fitness influencer Michela Arbocco and chess personality Andrea Botez to sell membership access to risque thirst traps, live streams with implied nudity, and direct messaging.</li><li>Sacra estimates that Passes is closing in on a $10M net revenue run rate within 14 months of launch, with $95M in GMV and an average revenue per creator (ARPC) of $6,666 across 900 creators.</li></ul>

OnlyFans’ 100x growth from $56M gross revenue in 2019 to $5.6B in 2022 gave rise to a wave of companies counter-positioned as safe-for-work (SFW) creator storefronts like Stan and Fanhouse (both founded in 2020).Passes launched as a “soft R”, banning nudity but allowing creators like Instagram fitness influencer Michela Arbocco and chess personality Andrea Botez to sell membership access to risque thirst traps, live streams with implied nudity, and direct messaging.Sacra estimates that Passes is closing in on a $10M net revenue run rate within 14 months of launch, with $95M in GMV and an average revenue per creator (ARPC) of $6,666 across 900 creators.

Passes: The $9.5M/year Softcore OnlyFans Growing 1166% year-over-year

<ul><li>Stan hit $14.7M of annual recurring revenue (ARR) at the end of 2023, up 765% year-over-year, as store-in-bio replaced link-in-bio as the default home base of the online creator.</li><li>Stan grew revenue a whopping 765% in 2023 by giving affiliates 20% of all revenue generated from their links into perpetuity, seeding a cottage industry of TikTok Stan influencers.</li><li>Gross churn is high at 13% monthly and Stan is living with the continued risk of being banned by TikTok, which recently sunset its integration with Shopify and will reportedly ban Amazon links-in-bio next.</li></ul>

Stan hit $14.7M of annual recurring revenue (ARR) at the end of 2023, up 765% year-over-year, as store-in-bio replaced link-in-bio as the default home base of the online creator.Stan grew revenue a whopping 765% in 2023 by giving affiliates 20% of all revenue generated from their links into perpetuity, seeding a cottage industry of TikTok Stan influencers.Gross churn is high at 13% monthly and Stan is living with the continued risk of being banned by TikTok, which recently sunset its integration with Shopify and will reportedly ban Amazon links-in-bio next.

<ul><li>On the flip side, pure subscription SaaS companies like ConvertKit ($9-25/month) and Beehiiv ($42-84/month) with a simple model of charging a fixed monthly fee based on list size hit $38M annual recurring revenue (ARR) on zero capital raised (ConvertKit) and $3M ARR on $4.2M raised (Beehiiv).</li><li>After having dipped to 3% year-over-year growth in October 2021, ConvertKit’s growth re-accelerated to 22% last month with the ad network launches of Creator Network, which lets writers do both free and paid recommendations of other newsletters, and Sponsor Network, which lets businesses sponsor writers.</li><li>Businesses are the biggest tailwind for the creator economy now—while corporate spend on social ads is down 6x since 2020, spending on influencer marketing in 2023 hit $5.1B just through Q3, up 82% from $2.8B in 2020.</li></ul>

On the flip side, pure subscription SaaS companies like ConvertKit ($9-25/month) and Beehiiv ($42-84/month) with a simple model of charging a fixed monthly fee based on list size hit $38M annual recurring revenue (ARR) on zero capital raised (ConvertKit) and $3M ARR on $4.2M raised (Beehiiv).After having dipped to 3% year-over-year growth in October 2021, ConvertKit’s growth re-accelerated to 22% last month with the ad network launches of Creator Network, which lets writers do both free and paid recommendations of other newsletters, and Sponsor Network, which lets businesses sponsor writers.Businesses are the biggest tailwind for the creator economy now—while corporate spend on social ads is down 6x since 2020, spending on influencer marketing in 2023 hit $5.1B just through Q3, up 82% from $2.8B in 2020.

United States

Newsletter tool for writers to publish, monetize, and grow subscriber audiences

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Substack (SUBSTACK US)

Stan: From $15M To $27M ARR In 3 Months

TL;DR: Stan hit $27M annual recurring revenue (ARR) in March 2024, growing ~20% month-over-month every month in Q1'24 from $15M ARR at the end of...

Sacra

Beehiiv Vs. ConvertKit Vs. Substack Vs. Mailchimp

TL;DR: Sacra estimates Beehiiv’s annualized revenue at $13M, up 450% year-over-year. In the creator economy, what was once a battle of the business...

Sacra

Passes: The $9.5M/year Softcore OnlyFans Growing 1166% year-over-year

TL;DR: Passes, founded by departed Scale AI co-founder Lucy Guo, is closing in on a $10M net revenue run rate as the safe-for-work version...

Sacra

Stan: The $14.7M/year store-in-bio

TL;DR: Stan hit $14.7M of annual recurring revenue (ARR) at the end of 2023, up 765% year-over-year, as store-in-bio replaced link-in-bio as the...

Sacra

ConvertKit At $38M ARR

TL;DR: Subscription SaaS creator economy companies like ConvertKit and Beehiiv with simple business models are growing through the creator...

Sacra

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