For a creator monetization platform like Passes that is trying to grow, having financial investments from the funds of celebrities like Jake Paul and Joe Montana and having LSU’s Livvy Dunne as a creator is a solid starting point.
The company has amassed around 1,000 creators since its 2022 inception. Passes has a similar business model to Patreon, which founder Lucy Guo said is her company’s biggest competition. Creators need to have at least 100,000 followers across other social platforms to be on Passes, and fans can pay creators to get access to exclusive content.
Now, Guo is leaning hard into the name, image and likeness (NIL) space, using college athletes to help her company expand. Passes declined to share how many monthly users are on the platform.
“By embracing NIL, we’re not only driving our growth but we’re creating new avenues for athletes who can create content to diversify their revenue streams, scale their businesses and connect with fans on a deeper level,” Guo said in an email.
Guo was particularly excited about NIL’s potential because college athlete monetization is still new. When asked to describe what a successful sports vertical looks like for Passes, Guo said she wants to see increased user engagement, subscriber growth and brand recognition within the sports industry. She wants Passes to participate in players growing their business profiles.
Signing Dunne, who has more than 13.2 million combined followers on Instagram and TikTok and is now featured on the company’s homepage, to a multimillion-dollar NIL deal in May was a first splash for Passes in the NIL game. She does one-on-one calls, text messaging and posts gymnastics and lifestyle content her fans can pay to see.
Guo said in May she wants the next move of the sports vertical to feature merchandise and fan experiences. To achieve that, Passes announced a partnership with the Texas One Fund, the University of Texas’ NIL collective, which had $5.3 million in total revenue in fiscal 2022, according to its latest 990 filing. NIL collectives involve boosters and other supporters of a college that organizes to facilitate sponsorship deals and recruit athletes.
Like Dunne, the Texas athletes will do Q&A sessions, engage in DMs, give behind-the-scenes content and take a unique approach to their brands.
“The sky is the limit with regard to our athletes’ engagement with fans and creating unique fan experiences,” Patrick Smith, Texas One Fund’s president, said in an email.
Passes offered NIL deals to 40 Texas athletes, and 37 of them accepted. According to Passes, offers were made to athletes from football, baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and other Olympic sports.
The company recently partnered with NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal to release episodes of his podcast, The Big Podcast With Shaq, a few hours before it airs on other platforms. Fans can ask O’Neal questions through DMs on the platform, which he will answer at the end of each show.
Despite Passes being privately held and declining to share financials about its partnership with the Texas collective, some information about the company is available. Passes announced it completed a $40 million Series A in February 2024 and had a $9 million seed round. Some of Passes’ investors include Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz’s Crossbeam Ventures and Aneel Ranadive’s Soma Capital, among others.
In July 2023, Passes merged with Fanhouse, another content monetization platform, and absorbed its creators. Before Passes, Guo co-founded Scale AI, an AI-focused data management and labeling company, in 2016, which is now valued at around $14 billion.
(This article has been updated with the number of Texas athletes who accepted a Passes NIL deal.)