Clutch, a marketplace for digital marketing services, has been acquired by the online social network Plaiced, Clutch’s co-founder, Madison Long, told TechCrunch.
The deal closed earlier this week for undisclosed terms.
“The creator economy is growing rapidly, we knew to remain competitive and really be able to take over market share, an acquisition would be the strongest next step,” Long told TechCrunch.
Long and Simone May founded Clutch in 2020 to help connect people to businesses looking for marketing and content creation. We last spoke to the duo in August 2022 after they closed a $1.2 million pre-seed round led by Precursor Ventures. At the time, the company had more than 200 creators on the platform and a 3,000-person waitlist. Since then, over 600 people have signed up to use Clutch and the company worked with more than 70 brands, including Hearst Media, Long said.
But the journey had its setbacks. Clutch restructured itself last June and conducted layoffs to prioritize profitability — which it ultimately did reach this year. During that time, May stepped down from her role as CTO to focus more on her family, leaving Long as CEO. Long said she thought about continuing to run the company independently, but, especially with GenAI in the picture, the content creation industry was changing rapidly. “The deciding factor to sell was finding the right partner who could take us further,” she said.
She was introduced to Plaiced CEO Kaaveh Shoamanesh in early May at a networking event and from there, the talks of an acquisition began. She felt Plaiced was the right partner because she said it and Clutch aligned on its values. “There are very few platforms in our industry that prioritize paying creators what they deserve and not compromising on this,” she said.
Shoamanesh said he’s also excited about the deal, saying it will help Plaiced expand its network by working with more creators. “It also offers more monetization opportunities for creators leveraging our existing network of online communities,” he told TechCrunch.
As a new founder, Long found herself reading as many books as she could about M&A, talking to founders who recently exited, as well as weighing the pros and cons of letting a company she helped build go. “Nothing can fully prepare you for your first exit,” she said. “I’d been working on Clutch for 5 years, and 3 years full-time. Hired over a dozen people, raised $2 million, and yet, this was definitely one of the hardest chapters of our company’s journey so far.”
The Clutch team is small — only four right now — and of the four, some have decided to stay while others have found other job opportunities and Long will stay on as an advisor for at least 18 months.
“It’s our number one priority that their collaborations are not impacted due to the acquisition,” she said.
Long says that her next personal goal is to spend more time with her family and “take time to take care of myself, rest, and reflect.”
This article was updated to reflect the correct spelling of May’s name.