Read the pitch deck that Catch+Release, a startup that helps creators and everyday social-media users license their content to brands, used to raise $8.8 million

• Catch+Release is a startup that licenses user-generated content for brands to use in ads.
• The company just announced an additional $8.8 million in Series A funding.
• Here’s the deck the company used to pitch investors.

Catch+Release, a startup that licenses and sells user-generated content from creators to brands, announced an additional $8.8 million in Series A funding in early August, led by return investor Accel. This brings the company’s total funding to more than $31 million.

Cervin, Astia Fund, and Stagwell were among the return investors, as were HarbourVest Partners, tech founder and CEO Nick Mehta, and Rich Kleiman and Kevin Durant’s fund 35V.

“We just raised this round in an incredibly difficult environment, with lots of market insecurity and many ups and downs,” said Analisa Goodin, the company’s founder and CEO, to Insider. “Over a 6-month period, we met with over 100 investors.” We were fortunate to have our existing investors participate in this round, and they remain very supportive and believe in our mission.”

Goodin founded the company in 2016 after feeling firsthand the pain of sourcing and licensing content for brand customers while working at an ad agency. She saw two options at the time: stock content or costly original production. Catch+Release aims to provide a “third way,” according to Goodin, by licensing existing internet content.

Creators who want to license their content — not just influencers, but also filmmakers, photographers, artists, musicians, and regular social-media users — can sign up for the platform and upload or sync their social-media accounts for free. They are then paid a fee that varies depending on factors such as how long a brand will use the content and which advertising channels they will use.

Brands can browse the platform’s library of licensed content, or if they find content online that they want to use for advertising, the company can handle the licensing process for them. The company also provides “curation packs” to assist brands in finding different types of content based on their needs.

Catch+Release has collaborated with companies such as Ford, Delta, Walmart, Samsonite, and Nike.

The additional $8.8 million investment will be used to improve the platform’s marketplace, which is the software that brands and agencies can use to find relevant content. In addition, the company is working on new tools to help creators get discovered and license their work more easily.