Curastory<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0platform that helps\u00a0content creators monetize their videos\u00a0and has grown to about 400,000 creators using it, she said.\u00a0It lets advertisers buy\u00a0in-video ads\u00a0from creators, while tracking\u00a0metrics and supporting other features, like video editing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nIt\u00a0has raised\u00a0around\u00a0$3 million to date\u00a0from\u00a0investors, including\u00a0Lightspeed\u2019s\u00a0Scout Fund,\u00a0Feld Ventures, and\u00a0Mindspring\u00a0Capital, according to PitchBook, which also listed it as having\u00a0participated\u00a0in a few accelerator programs like Techstars\u00a0and the SPARK Program, held by AMEX Ventures and Project W, according to PitchBook.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a wild ride,\u201d she\u00a0admitted.\u00a0As part of the settlement,\u00a0Kelly\u00a0also agreed to\u00a0pay a fine.\u00a0
She told TechCrunch that she did not know what triggered\u00a0the SEC\u00a0investigation.\u00a0She said\u00a0she received a subpoena in June and in January\u00a0was issued the violations\u00a0notice\u00a0from the SEC.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u00a0hopes for time and grace.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s interesting having and being forced to step down,\u201d she said. She\u00a0still\u00a0has\u00a0majority\u00a0ownership in the company but said\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0happy that fundraising and finances are off her plate.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u00a0said\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0also\u00a0happy she was able to\u00a0pick\u00a0her successor, finding\u00a0Dickman through an executive recruiter. Many other\u00a0ousted\u00a0founders\u00a0are not able to\u00a0do so. She asked the\u00a0recruiter\u00a0to find someone who was a good person, who\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0strip and\u00a0sell\u00a0the\u00a0company for quick cash, and who would understand the technology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly-stage\u00a0companies have all kinds of challenges across the board. In the end, it happened.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0been resolved,\u201d Dickman\u00a0told TechCrunch. He compared him and Kelly to yin and yang, as he spent decades in the creator space and has worked at a few\u00a0early-stage\u00a0startups.\u00a0She is analytical, he said, and very product-focused, while he likes having\u00a0more of\u00a0a\u00a0leadership role.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0a good combo\u00a0and complementary to drive this forward,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kelly, meanwhile,\u00a0is already seeing some changes, as Dickman has been CEO for a few weeks already. She\u00a0said\u00a0his\u00a0fundraising deck made it to the desk of a\u00a0VC\u00a0fund,\u00a0and they forwarded it to someone else, nudging them to take a look at the product.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not had that experience with fundraising, as you could probably imagine,\u201d she\u00a0said, referring to the experience\u00a0that\u00a0women, especially Black women,\u00a0often\u00a0face when raising venture money. \u201cSo that has been eye-opening.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Under\u00a0Dickman, she hopes for a bright future for the company.\u00a0Curastory\u00a0already has plans\u00a0to expand into Canada,\u00a0Australia,\u00a0and the U.K. soon.\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
The company is working on new features to target\u00a0creators on\u00a0other platforms\u00a0like Spotify video and to\u00a0add AI to the product\u00a0to make their advertising technology a bit more agentic, she said.\u00a0Its\u00a0current video enablement tools include YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook Watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It also plans to add a more enhanced attribution model for\u00a0advertisers\u00a0that would\u00a0eliminate\u00a0the need for influencer promo codes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the\u00a0immediate,\u00a0near-term\u00a0product, sales, globalization things,\u201d Kelly said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite this shocking end to her run as the CEO of\u00a0her\u00a0company, she told TechCrunch,\u00a0\u201cBeing\u00a0a founder and CEO is one of the most humbling and rewarding experiences I think anyone can have.\u201d\u00a0She hopes to\u00a0share\u00a0her\u00a0lessons learned and\u00a0experiences with others, \u201cespecially women and people of color.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Securities and Exchange\u00a0Commission has accused\u00a0content monetization\u00a0startup\u00a0Curastory\u00a0of\u00a0overstating revenue to investors and misrepresenting true client numbers, according to paperwork…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[138,37614,336,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-149129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-content-creators","10":"tag-entrepreneurship","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}