Noise raises $5.5M seed to pay everyday creators for brand content
What's the deal? Noise, a platform that pays users to make branded videos, has raised $5.5 million in a seed round. Capital Midwest, M25Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Grishin RoboticsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round, with CapitalizeVC and executives from companies including DoorDash also participating. The deal brings Noise's total funding to $7.2 million.
What's the endgame? Noise lets anyone with a smartphone earn from brand campaigns, even without a large following. Users pick available campaigns and post videos to TikTok, Instagram, FacebookDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, or YouTube; pay depends on views rather than a fixed fee. Brands upload a brief and set a budget, while Noise handles campaign management, payments, and creator coordination.
How does it work? New users complete training modules before unlocking select campaigns, then earn access to higher-paying assignments as they progress. The company says its top participants earn more than $100,000 a year. Noise takes a commission on brand payments once videos generate views.
The platform now counts 1.5 million creators. Its main clients are mobile app developers and startups with limited budgets, which can engage thousands of creators at once and test many videos. "Our largest brands automatically work with several thousand creators," said chief executive officer Diego Cafiye.
Why now? Cafiye, Stu Feldt, and Nick Weber founded Noise in 2025, drawing on two years spent building the mobile gaming platform Playbite. That team learned to recruit and train players to make social posts, driving app installs without hiring pricey influencers. The company has since added an Organic-to-Ads program, letting brands run creator videos as paid ads on Meta and TikTok.
What's the money for? Noise plans to use the round to develop platform features and grow its team. It expects its model to help brands scale marketing while letting users earn without first building a large audience.
The signal: At $5.5 million, the seed sits above roughly 95% of comparable US media seed rounds on record. The bet reflects growing appetite for creator infrastructure: Noise cites 57% of young people and just over 40% of US adults saying they would try influencer marketing, a demand rivals like Billo and JoinBrands are also chasing.
Read more: mezha.net
Image credit: International Journalism Festival
