The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused content monetization startup Curastory of overstating revenue to investors and misrepresenting actual customer numbers, according to documents seen by TechCrunch.
As a result of a settlement with the SEC, Curastory founder and CEO Tiffany Kelly stepped down from the role and replaced herself with Dave Dickman, former CEO of influencer marketing platform Tagger.
Under Dickman’s leadership, the company launched fundraising, international expansion plans and product updates, Kelly and Dickman tell TechCrunch.
The settlement agreement specifically barred Kelly for 10 years from serving on the board or as an officer of any company that would, in effect, raise money. TechCrunch saw a version of that deal that had not yet been finalized. It said Kelly agreed to those terms without admitting or denying the allegations.
Although Kelly remains a major shareholder and will remain an advisor, she told TechCrunch that “leaving was really the only decision I could make just to keep the company alive and thriving,” she said.
Kelly founded the company in 2021. Diligence is a platform that helps content creators monetize their videos and has grown to about 400,000 creators using it, he said. It allows advertisers to buy in-video ads from creators, while tracking metrics and supporting other features such as video editing.
It has raised about $3 million to date from investors including Lightspeed’s Scout Fund, Feld Ventures and Mindspring Capital, according to PitchBook, which also said it has participated in a few accelerator programs such as Techstars and the AMEX Ventures-owned SPARK Program and Project W, according to PitchBook.
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“It’s been a crazy ride,” he admitted. As part of the settlement, Kelly also agreed to pay a fine.
He told TechCrunch that he didn’t know what triggered the SEC’s investigation. She said she received a subpoena in June and was issued a notice of violations by the Securities and Exchange Commission in January.
He hopes for time and grace. “It’s interesting to have and to be forced to resign,” he said. She still owns the majority of the company, but said she is happy to have her fundraising and finances out of the way.
She also said she’s glad she was able to choose her successor, finding Dickman through an executive recruiter. Many other ousted founders can’t. He asked the recruiter to find someone who was a good person, who wouldn’t strip and sell the company for quick cash, and who understood technology.
“Early-stage companies have all kinds of challenges across the board. In the end, it happened. It’s been resolved,” Dickman told TechCrunch. He compared him and Kelly to yin and yang, as he’s spent decades in the creator space and has worked at a few early-stage startups. She’s analytical, he said, and very product-focused, while he likes to have more of a leadership role.
“I feel like we’re a good combination and complement to move it forward,” he said.
Kelly, meanwhile, is already seeing some changes since Dickman has been CEO for a few weeks. He said the fundraising deck arrived at the desk of a VC fund and they passed it on to someone else, prompting them to take a look at the product.
“I haven’t had that experience with fundraising, as you can probably imagine,” she said, referring to the experience that women, especially black women, often face when raising venture capital. “So that was an eye opener.”
Under Dickman, he hopes for a bright future for the company. Curastory already has plans to expand to Canada, Australia and the UK soon.
The company is working on new features to target creators on other platforms like Spotify video and add artificial intelligence to the product to make their ad tech a little more practical, he said. Current video enablers include YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook Watch.
It also plans to add a more streamlined attribution model for advertisers that will eliminate the need for influencer promo codes.
“That’s the immediate, short-term product, the sales, the globalization,” Kelly said.
Despite the shocking end to her tenure as CEO of her company, she told TechCrunch, “Being a founder and CEO is one of the most humbling and rewarding experiences I think anyone can have.” She hopes to share her lessons and experiences with others, “especially women and people of color.”
