Solo Ceesay is a former Citi investment banker and co-founder of a cryptocurrency platform called Calaxy. According to Ceesay, the platform works like Patreon and OnlyFans. The platform allows users to launch their own cryptocurrencies that fans can purchase and use in exchange for their content. What is more, the platform allows creators to set their own pricing and decide what they want to offer to their fans.
“We don’t want people to just buy social tokens because they might change value over time. That’s not our narrative,” Ceesay told Business Insider. “We thought, in order to touch our diverse audiences, social tokens have to get you something as a fan.”
Also, the platform prides itself on being the next social marketplace for diverse creators to monetize their communities. Ceesay launched Calaxy in partnership with NBA player Spencer Dinwiddie. The two ventured into Web3 when Ceesay helped Dinwiddie to securitize a $34.4 million NBA contract using Ethereum, using his investment banking expertise, according to the Insider.
Creators of Calaxy set all the rules to price out what their content is worth in “tokens” that their fans can buy. Also, the platform allows creators to monetize their audio content, video content, images, and messages all in one place.
Calaxy makes money by charging a 15% fee on any creator’s issued token. “For example, if a creator issues 100 tokens for a video call, the USD equivalent of 15 tokens goes to Calaxy,” according to Business Insider. The outlet further noted that their fee is slightly higher than Pateron’s fee at 12% and lower than OnlyFans’, which takes a 20% cut.
The startup raised $26 million in a strategic funding round led by Animoca Brands and HBAR Foundation this June. However, the process leading to raising the $26$ million was not smooth sailing, despite having an NBA star as the face of the business.
Ceesay said he pitched to over 100 funds in eight months, explaining that it wasn’t difficult to get the buy-ins from the Web3 community as “everybody wants to see the boat going, so everyone pushes the boat.” He however noted that it was much more difficult to sell to the traditional venture-capital funds on the Web3-value proposition.
Click here to see the 14-slide pitch deck Ceesay used to raise $26 million for his Web3 startup.
