Cookie Finance CEO and founder Nate Coughran. Cookie recently secured a capital raise, and has earmarked the funds to increase the size of its team. (Courtesy Cookie Finance)
A Scott’s Addition-based startup that handles the financial needs of social media personalities has secured seven figures of cash from investors.
Cookie Finance, which provides accounting, bookkeeping and similar services to online content creators, recently closed on a $4.1 million capital raise, CEO and founder Nate Coughran said.
Coughran, who has a background in accounting, got the idea for Cookie Finance during a 2022 family vacation where he learned about the experiences of his sisters-in-law, who had both cultivated followings on social media and were making money off their online postings but in Coughran’s eyes were getting bad financial counsel.
“They were both working with their own mom-and-pop accountants, and they were telling me the advice they were getting. Everything they were telling me was dead wrong,” said Coughran, a Boston College graduate who was working at Capital Square at the time.
Coughran said content creators have particular financial needs since their jobs are often linked closely to their personal lives. He pointed specifically to tax deductions, which social media users who promote themselves or a lifestyle can take advantage of in a way that isn’t typical of many other businesses, because they often act like consumers in the course of working.
For example, while a flower-shop owner likely wouldn’t get away with writing off personal clothing or trips to Disneyland, a social-media personality that makes YouTube videos about fashion or their vacations potentially could.
“With a content creator their personal life is their business, which means the deductions they get are unique compared to pretty much any other business out there,” Coughran said.
Coughran said the novelty of what’s a relatively new way for people to make a living means that often accountants, particularly older professionals, aren’t well versed in how best to advise clients. He said his startup is an attempt to fill the gap by being focused on content creators, who can make money by marketing products, selling ads that appear in their podcasts or videos and other means.
Coughran said Cookie’s clients are concentrated in California, Texas and Florida, but that there are clients based nationwide. He declined to share how many clients Cookie has. He said the company currently only works with U.S.-based clients.
He said the average client is in their mid-to-late 20s and makes about $125,000 to $150,000 a year.
Cookie offers a two-tier, month-to-month service plan. Clients that make less than $100,000 a year pay $275 a month, while those that make more than $100,000 a year pay $350 a month, per the company website. The packages include monthly tracking of revenue and expenses, filing tax returns and monthly financial reports.
After getting the idea for Cookie the previous summer, the company took shape during a business trip in early 2023. Coughran had some downtime in the hotel, and decided to create a website that offered financial services to content creators.
“I threw together an ugly website and ran some Google ads to see what would happen and within 48 hours I had our first client sign up,” he said.
Now, a little under two years since Cookie’s launch, the company is in the midst of doubling its headcount with the newly acquired capital.
Cookie hired a chief technology officer in mid-August, and more recently, four software developers to handle technology needs, which had previously been outsourced, as Cookie looks to further build out its software system.
The company is also adding more bookkeepers, accountants and marketers. New hires have already started to join the company, and Cookie is on track to total 30 employees. The company had around 14 people prior to the raise closing in mid-September.
Coughran said there was strong interest from investors. Cookie kicked off its raise in the middle of June with a goal of about half of what it ended up raising. Coughran chalked that up to the company’s success so far.
“We’re generating revenue. We have a strong client base already and the market is exploding. We had a lot of good things going for it,” Coughran said. “It was relatively easy to line up calls with venture capital firms.”
Lead investors in the recently closed round were New York-based TIA Ventures and Richmond-based Blue Heron Capital. To date, Cookie has raised about $4.5 million. The company completed a previous $400,000 raise earlier this year.
Coughran said the latest capital infusion could potentially carry the company to a break-even point. He declined to share when he anticipated that milestone would be reached.
Shortly after Cookie’s launch, Coughran left a job with Capital Square to focus on the startup full time.
The company’s name is a nod to Coughran’s love of the baked treats. He and his kids make cookies every Sunday, and he said when it was time to think of a name for the startup he wanted a moniker that was personally meaningful.
Cookie is based in the Venture X coworking space in Scott’s Addition. While most of the team works out of that office, a few work remotely out of state.