Las Vegas, NV – July 24, 2024 – Colin Kaepernick, the civil rights activist and former NFL quarterback, today announced the launch of Lumi, a groundbreaking platform that empowers creators by providing them with the tools needed to independently create, publish, and merchandise their stories both digitally and physically. The company has raised $4M in venture capital funding with a seed round led by Seven Seven Six, alongside Kapor Capital and Impellent Ventures, and notable angel investors like Mariam Naficy (founder of Minted), David Sze, Chamillionaire, and tech execs from Meta, Anthropic, ContextualAI, Sleeper, Pave and more.
Stories are fundamental to shaping our reality and better understanding our world. Currently, a few large corporations dominate the narrative landscape, limiting the diversity of stories told. Lumi aims to open the funnel, enabling anyone to access storytelling superpowers, ultimately fostering a more inclusive and equitable world. Stories don’t exist without creators, and we all suffer when creators can’t bring their stories to life.
Lumi’s mission is to democratize storytelling by providing tools for creators to turn their ideas into finished products, as well as distributing and merchandising those stories – transforming any creator into Disney. By leveraging advanced AI tools, Lumi enhances the creative process, allowing creators to focus on bringing their stories to life, while the platform handles all of the logistics. Creators have had a significant impact on AI, and they should be a primary beneficiary of its use.
Creators today face significant challenges, including exploitation and lack of independence. Lumi addresses these issues by providing an end-to-end solution for storytelling, leading to more financial stability, creative control, and ownership of their work. Additionally, as AI continues to evolve, it is essential to ensure that the resulting content reflects diverse and authentic perspectives. By empowering creators to authentically create their stories, Lumi helps ensure a more equitable future for AI.
Lumi was founded out of the barriers that Kaepernick discovered publishing his own works. This included high production costs, long production timelines, and gatekeeping within the industry. These challenges generate significant friction for creators, preventing many projects from getting off the ground. By decreasing the barrier to entry, Lumi opens the funnel of creativity to the world, enabling a new wave of diverse and innovative stories to come to life.
“Lumi addresses an unnecessary dependency on gatekeepers that slows creators down,” says Kaepernick, Founder & CEO of Lumi. “This allows creators to get back to what they ultimately want to do: create . The platform empowers creators to work freely and independently, deciding when and how they want to collaborate with others. This independence is crucial for fostering a vibrant and diverse creative ecosystem.”
Seven Seven Six, the venture capital firm founded in 2020 by Alexis Ohanian, has been a staunch advocate for tech-forward storytelling. “The timing for this venture is perfect, as recent technological advancements have made it possible to realize Lumi's vision,” said Cristina Apple Georgoulakis, Partner at Seven Seven Six. “Colin and the Lumi team have gathered valuable insights from creators about their concerns and needs, including the desire for control over their work and financial sustainability. We believe Lumi is the perfect solution to a problem that has existed for decades.”
The company plans to focus energy on comic book and graphic-novel creators first, a market with the need for multiple creative skill sets.
About Lumi
Lumi is on a mission to democratize storytelling by providing creators with the tools to independently create, publish, and merchandise their stories. Founded by Colin Kaepernick, Lumi leverages advanced AI technology to enhance the creative process and ensure diverse and authentic stories shape our future. For more information, visit https://lumistory.ai/.
About Seven Seven Six
Seven Seven Six is an early-stage venture capital firm with over $900M AUM focused on the intersection of product and people. Powered by the operating system Cerebro, at its heart, 776 is a technology company that deploys capital. The firm was founded in 2020 by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Seven Seven Six invests across sectors, with investments spanning the creator economy, space, climate tech, sports, fintech, web3, healthcare, collectibles, AI, and more. For more information, visit https://sevensevensix.com/.
For more information, please contact:
Media Contact:
Jenna Birch
Communications, 776
jenna.birch@sevensevensix.com
Get exclusive access