On the heels of a record 2020, Chicago startup Cameo is adding to its executive team as it looks to keep its foot on the gas in 2021.
Cameo announced on Tuesday a slew of c-suite hires: Rob Post, the former CTO at Quibi, was hired to be its chief technology officer. Post also spent 10 years at Hulu as VP of engineering. Deb Schwartz, the former CFO of Bustle Digital Group, was named Cameo's chief financial officer. Melanie Steinbach, previously the chief people officer at McDonald's, is now Cameo's chief people officer. And Brian Frank, the former head of global operations at LinkedIn, was named Cameo's chief operating officer.
The hires come as Cameo's growth skyrocketed last year. The startup, which offers fans personalized video shoutouts from celebrities, sold $100 million worth of Cameos last year. The company keeps 25% of each Cameo sold, netting around $25 million in revenue last year. Cameo, founded in 2017, sold its one millionth video message last May, and the company sold almost one million more Cameos last year than it has in its entire four-year history.
More than 10,000 new celebrities joined Cameo last year, and the startup said that by the end of 2020, more than 150 celebrities were earning at least $100,000 on the platform. The top-earning celebrity last year was Brian Baumgartner, the actor who played Kevin on The Office. Baumgartner did over $1 million in bookings last year, CEO Steven Galanis said.
Last year Cameo also launched a Cameo for Business product that allows companies to book celebrities for ad campaigns and other corporate initiatives, like company Zoom calls. That product has already grown into a multimillion dollar business, Cameo said.
Cameo also roughly doubled its headcount last year as it now approaches 200 employees, all of whom are remote after the company opted to ditch its physical office space in 2020.
The company is now preparing to raise more funding in 2021, according to The Information, which it will use to acquire smaller startups and expand internationally. Cameo raised a $50 million Series B round in 2019, bringing its total VC funding to date to $65 million.
