ShopMy Raises $78M at $410M Valuation // Rise of Affiliate Commerce

January 31, 2025 by Chris Erwin

RockWater Roundup

M&A analysis of the creator economy to make you a better operator and investor.

Today we discuss ShopMy’s $77.5M Series B fundraise, including the deal details, implies $410M valuation, strategic rationale, and rise of creator-led affiliate commerce.

Let’s break it down…

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–TARGET: ShopMy–

Overview

Launched in 2020
Founders are Harry Rein (CEO), Tiffany Lopinsky (President), Chris Tinsley
Provides tools for gifting programs and shoppable links for influencers
Identifies micro-influencers for brands
Biz model: Advertisers pay subscription fees and takes % of sales
550+ brand subscriptions, 50k commissionable brands, 100k creators
Brands incl Lululemon, Nordstrom, Dior
214 employees

Product Overview

Combines direct creator connections, paid partnerships, and affiliate marketing
Provides real-time metrics previously exclusive to paid search and social ads
Brands gets tools and data to track influencer sales
Influencers earn rev share via shoppable storefronts / links
50k commissionable brands
16k creator content pieces, 125M+ views in 6 months
190k product requests via Lookbooks, its automated gifting feature
“Opportunities” provides guaranteed payments, seamless production process, creative freedom, and real-time analytics

Financial Highlights

Valuation: increased from $80M in Mar 2024 to $410M in Jan 2025
$352M in brand sales with 5x ROAS

Capital Markets History

Total raised: $104M
Previous fundraises
- 2022 Seed: $8M
- 2024 Series A: $18.5M (our past analysis)
- 2025: Series B: $77.5M

–DEAL DETAILS–

Overview

$77.5M Series B
$410M valuation
Implies 18.9% equity stake to investors
Lead Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures
Other Participants: Menlo Ventures, Inspired Capital, AlleyCorp

Use of Funds

Expand into new ad categories incl wellness, maternity, family, food & beverage
Increase marketing budget, attract more influencers and brands
Enhance platform features, automation capabilities
Grow global advertiser clients

–What Else I Find Interesting–

A𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹. Influencer marketing has typically been for top-of-funnel marketing, to drive awareness for products and services. But brand marketers, particularly those who are performance-focused, are demanding more ROI-driven ad solutions for creator economy spend. Vanity metrics like followers and likes no longer cut it. Affiliate commerce helps “𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘭” by giving creators shoppable storefronts and links, helping convert audiences and fans into paid customers of products. As a result, AC will attract thousands more marketers to do ad spend experiments and / or increase their overall spend. This will unlock billions more in marketing spend and drive significant revenue growth for the creator economy.

Rise of creator-led affiliate commerce. Just 3 weeks ago Later paid $250M for affiliate platform Mavely, and we estimated high revenue and EBITDA multiples. Further, the support ecosystem for affiliate commerce is growing w/ co’s like The Creator Society, Orca, and Favored Live. And now ShopMy has raised a massive growth round. These are similar dynamics I observed a decade ago in the early days of creators and influencer marketing (rise of MCNs / influencer reps / IM tools, etc). Just like back then, we now expect much more affiliate-related investment and M&A to follow, and valuations to rise. This is a must-track new growth sector in the creator economy. From my convos around town, I know that many Hollywood and marketing agencies are now having internal convos headlined “𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘺?”.

E𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗮 “𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿-𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲-𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁” 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁. The affiliate market will be big enough to support various players, and some estimates show nearly 20% YoY growth. But TBD who will rise to the top. Key drivers of success will be platforms that have large creator networks, large audiences, easy-to-use tools to set up shoppable storefronts and links, robust analytics for creators / brands / retailers, and competitive pricing and creator rev share. Key players include pure-play incumbents like LTK, affiliate initiatives from social platforms like TikTok and retailers like Amazon, and new fast-growing disruptors like ShopMy. Curious to see where all this nets out

Growing trend of 9-figure creator-related valuations. This deal values ShoMy at $410M. Other recent large valuations in the creator economy space include Whatnot’s $265M fundraise at a $5B valuation, the $500M sale of Influential to Publicis, Dude Perfect’s $100M fundraise at an estimated $250M valuation, Later’s $250M acquisition of Mavely, and Insignia Capital’s $100M+ acquisition of Veritone One and Oxford Road. Our team expects 2025 to be a year of record valuations from fundraisings and exits, expect to see some big headlines.

Reduces social platform dependency, drives revenue diversity: Shoppable storefronts and links helps creators to monetize independently from social platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. This creates a new revenue line outside rev share of programmatic ad spend (which only YouTube does well), and IM campaigns. Addresses growing concerns surrounding platform algorithm changes, legal disputes, and revenue sharing, and a growing need by creators to diversify revenue streams.

Rise of nano-influencers: ShopMy’s micro-influencer focus, or those with 10k-100k followers, reflects growing shift toward smaller creators. Compared to mega-influencers, there’s schools of thought and supporting data that smaller creators can deliver higher engagement (4x more vs mega creators), higher conversion (40% more than larger influencers), and trust at lower CAC by hyper-targeting niche audiences.

Ad category expansion: ShopMy’s new focus on wellness and kids/family advertising signals untapped opportunities in under-monetized but high-growth verticals, signaling where ad dollars are flowing next. I also liked this quote from ShopMy’s CEO about the differences between various marketer categories, which informs what solutions are needed…“In hospitality, for instance, the customer journey is typically longer and more considered than fashion, so we’re adapting our measurement tools to account for these longer conversion windows.”

I’m the founder of RockWater Industries. We do M&A and strategy advisory for creator economy and digital agencies. From buy / sell-side M&A and fundraising, to consumer research and go-to-market planning.

DM me on LinkedIn or email me chris @ wearerockwater dot com