Million Studio, the first-of-its-kind content automation platform for professional athletes, announced today that it has come out of stealth mode and successfully closed its angel round of funding raising $350,000 with investments from DraftKings CEO Jason Robins, former New Jersey Devils Bryce Salvador, and Spencer Dinwiddie of the Brooklyn Nets. The initial capital raise will go towards development of the virtual CMO for professional athletes, which includes enhancements to their content creation engine and expanding beyond the NHL & NFL.
Nicholas Lemiuex, who used $50,000 in DraftKings winnings to bootstrap Million Studio, recognized how fragmented the marketing automation landscape was and how it was non-existent in an industry that’s home to the world’s most notable content creators; the sports industry. Robins was so impressed by Lemieux’s business model, product, and vision, that he signed on to be an early investor. RIT Venture Fund, KBB Capital, Bryce Salvador, and Spencer Dinwiddie have also signed on as investors as the company prepares for growth and ramps up for its next round of funding.
“It is important for professional athletes to own their audience data and brand,” Robins adds. “Million Studio has a practical solution and a strong team simplifying that process for athletes.”
The winnings may have launched Million Studio, but Lemiuex assembled an impressive roster to help expand his new company with experience ranging from TB12, the Alliance of American Football, the Seattle Seahawks, Facebook, Twitter, AdRoll, Datto and Jebbit. This caught the eye of Bryce Salvador, former captain of the New Jersey Devils, coach, MSG commentator, entrepreneur and business owner, who was the first athlete to utilize the platform and validate its need within the athlete marketing world.
"I saw social media as more of a threat when I was playing -- we were told not to engage on social media. It wasn't until I was getting ready to retire and start a business that I saw the critical need it plays in building my brand.” Salvador said. “When I got off the ice, Million Studio was absolutely valuable for me in understanding how to manage my audience data, craft effective content, and build my brand."
Rosenhaus Sports Representation, a leader in NFL representation for over 30 years and who continues to dominate the competition, endorsed Million Studio’s mission as they have officially signed on as a client.
"Our clients are increasingly becoming more aware of the need to build their digital brand, and produce content that they can monetize,” said Bari Wolfman, Director of Marketing and PR for Rosenhaus Sports Representation. “We use and value Million Studio as a partner in delivering those solutions to our clients, most recently with Devin Bush and helping him build up his Undrszd brand off the field."
Million Studio hopes that this platform will become the most efficient way to automate content creation for athletes – specifically those who don’t have the teams, resources or agencies that can sufficiently manage nuances of content creation for brand building.
ABOUT MILLION STUDIO:
Founded in 2016, Million Studio is a content & marketing automation platform for professional athletes. As athletes continue to lead the charge as content creators and brands, Million Studio has seen the need first-hand, for them to have a better content creation and management process. Most athletes and their agents don’t have the in-house resources, or marketing & engineering background to successfully run and automate social media, email and blog content automation that they can easily monetize, Million Studio does. It’s through Million Studio’s technology, and backgrounds, that this platform was designed to do for athletes what HubSpot and Salesforce do for businesses.
Million Studio automates the creation of content for professional athletes to be used in social media posts, websites and email newsletters to help athletes grow, influence and monetize their audience. The Million Studio team engineered a way to blend API data from leagues with personal data from athletes to generate production-ready content. Athletes can assess their influence and value to brands using a proprietary Brand Equity Score that also shows how they stack up against their peers and other athletes.
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