Clubhouse raises Series B led by a16z, says it has 180+ investors, and will test options for paying creators and begin work on an Android app soon
Clubhouse is moving quickly today, but in some ways it feels like the journey started a long time ago. The two of us met back in 2011 through …
Clubhouse
Context & Ripple Effects
Clubhouse’s Series B follows its earlier a16z-backed Series A, extending the same investor relationship while adding a much larger investor base. The new funding is paired with product commitments rather than presented as a stand-alone financing event.
Related coverage places the round alongside reports of a $1B post-money valuation, making creator payments and Android development the operational tests attached to Clubhouse’s higher valuation.
First-order effects
Clubhouse can begin testing creator-payment options, giving creators a direct stake in how the service develops monetization.
Clubhouse will start Android development, expanding its near-term product roadmap beyond its existing platform availability.
Second-order effects
Creator-payment tests make payout design and creator participation immediate product priorities for Clubhouse, rather than merely community-growth concerns.
The Android effort requires Clubhouse to divide the new capital and organizational attention between broadening access and building a creator-economy feature set.
Third-order effects
If Clubhouse couples wider device access with durable creator payments, its model shifts toward a two-sided platform in which creator incentives become as central as audience growth.
The subsequent Series C led by Andreessen Horowitz suggests that investor support was increasingly tied to sustaining that expansion beyond the initial Series B roadmap.
The trend: Social audio platforms are pairing rapid audience expansion with creator monetization, using new funding to build both sides of the network at once.
👇 Some news: I've led a16z's new investment in Clubhouse and have joined the board. Essay below that covers: - how I know founders @pdavison @rohanseth - why we're excited to invest - how we think Clubhouse is unique - particularly for creators! https://a16z.com/...
Clubhouse's weekly active user base *doubled over the last couple of weeks* to 2M. @firstadopter sees it growing into the tens of millions. Here are his observations after months of using and enjoying the service: https://www.bloomberg.com/... via @bopinion
So far the ONLY value I have found on #ClubHouseApp #clubhouse is a slew of new non-white content creators. I love the diversity I've found, but I'm aware of the absolute nonsense taking place in the app and ABSOLUTELY HATE IT https://twitter.com/...
I totally think Clubhouse is worth $1B. The engagement is off the charts, and the comps are worth $40B-$750B. It's just as a SaaS guy, I still struggle a bit with the exact valuations at $0 in MRR.
There is MUCH more nonsense on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn and other platforms than there is on Clubhouse. Much more in absolute terms bc of scale. Same percentage-wise. You've just curated your Twitter, LI and FB and haven't curated your Clubhouse yet. That's all.
Little anecdote about how much Clubhouse convos over the weekend were about.. Clubhouse: I was in a room with @TiffanyHaddish as she became the first user to surpass 1 million followers. She told everyone that a16z had just reached out to her asking if she wanted to invest.
terrific line from @danprimack: “The risk is that the audio boom is being artificially inflated by the stay-at-home pandemic, and that Andreessen Horowitz's confidence is colored by some of its partners' own addictions to using Clubhouse.” https://twitter.com/...