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Colin Kaepernick he made headlines back in twenty sixteen for his political views and activism both on and off the football field. Today, the former NFL quarterback making headlines once again, but this time for dipping his toes into the vast lake that is artificial intelligence. Kaepernick launching a new company that uses AI tools to help create us navigate some of the barriers to come with producing, marketing, and distributing content,
and he's got the backing to do it. Four million dollars raise in seed funding led by VC firms seven seven six. Without further ado, we're happy to be joined exclusively by Colin Kaepernick, founder and CEO of the AI company Loomy. All right, Colin, let's get right to it here. I mean, give us the idea, the genesis of this idea, because I'm told it had something to do with the media company that you had started prior to this.
Yeah.
Absolutely, the media company I had started prior to low me as well as the publishing company prior. We faced a lot of barriers there and helping creators both create the expense distribution and also the gatekeeping within the industries. So we looked at those barriers and found a solution to be able to help create or solve that and to be able to do that at scale, and I
think that's really important. And the last piece that's important there is creators also own all of the work that they create, so they no longer have to be commissioned hires. They no longer have to create for somebody else. They have freedom to create what they want and have that independence.
This sounds like one of those opportunities when we talk about kind of whether you want to use the word democratization or kind of removing those barriers. And we've seen this already. Of course, social media has a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise have had opportunities to become stars or make a ton of money, but to do so in a way that bypass those traditional avenues. Here, how will Loomi help to do that using some of these AI tools.
Yeah, So the interesting part is sometimes creators have gaps in their skills. So sometimes illustrators they need help with writing, or writer writers they need help with generating images. And if you're a creator like me who doesn't have either of those skill sets, we'll help you with both of those to get to a final product from an original idea, and then once you have that final product, we'll help you publish it, distribute it, and then also merchandise your stories.
And one of the goals here is we want to create economic and financial stability for creators. So many creators we've talked to our living paycheck to paycheck, project to project and they have massive followings and there's something fundamentally wrong about that in our perspective that they should be the primary beneficiaries and we want to be the ones to an able.
So I got to ask you about the investment four million dollars in seed funding led by seven seven six, and of course Alexis o'hanian involved as well.
How did that come together?
Yeah, so interesting, we did. We did the full road show going out in fundraising. Had talked to a lot of people and Alexis seven seventy six. They have been phenomenal to work with, are very aligned on the vision, and they share the perspective that very similar to how putting a camera on an iPhone turned everybody into a photographer, that AI tools can help democratize storytelling and turn everybody into a creator and that's what we believe the future
looks like. They've been phenomenal in helping us bring that vision to life. And we also have some other phenomenal investors from Kopor Capital Impellent as well as tech executives from Anthropic, Nike, Meta that are on board with us. So we've been able to get a lot of support and have great people on this journey with us.
So at the end of the day, Loomy is a tech company when it comes down to it, And you named a couple of luminaries from the tech world. Did you tach contacts made during your playing career in the Bay Area where you did have access to a lot of these guys.
There have been a lot of people that have helped me on this journey to get to this point. It has been years of development, years of building relationships, and also years of understanding the impact of AI, how it can actually be utilized and how it can benefit creators, and all of that has finally come together into what is Loomy now?
What do you what are you talking about right now, Colin? When it comes to building up this company in terms of hiring as well as greater investments here, what's in the pipeline right now.
Absolutely.
So we're currently the process of expanding our team. We're hiring for both software software and mL engineers and also looking at the product and design piece to make sure that we're giving creators the best experience. So we're focused on that, but also very focused on talking with creators, building with creators, getting them on the platform, to make sure that we're building the best experience for them.
Without creators, none of this works.
Yeah. Do you think when we talk about content creators and kind of the financial mechanisms that, oh, how they make money? Obviously a lot of that is still tethered to ads or sponsorships with corporations in some way. Do you ever see that evolving to something broader? I don't know.
I have no idea what that would be, whether it be a subscription model, but some way to diversify that revenue stream so those creators aren't reliant just on one sort of stream of revenue and if that drives up, they're basically out of business.
Yes, very much aligned, and that's phenomenal point.
Our vision of the future is individual creat will look like Disney. They'll be able to go from an idea to a final story, they'll be able to publish that, they'll be able to merchandise it, they'll be able to do it across the franchises and stories they create, and to be able to collaborate with other creators and do that all on one platform. So that's what we're focused on building and the experience we're focused on building that Loomy for creators.
Your goal here is definitely to solve problems for creators. For storytellers, talk a little bit about how that connects with your own story, because obviously you had a story to tell and it was something that you wanted to have control over, and in some ways it kind of got out of your control.
Yeah, there's so many opportunities that so many opportunities and so many stories that people want to tell, and myself included, and it's very difficult to get that done. Oftentimes, once you get a green light, it can take eighteen to twenty four months before that story comes to life, which we want to drastically reduce that time period for creators. But the other part is in going traditional paths, oftentimes
you don't have control over the story. You have input on it, but you don't have control and That's something that as we've talked to creators, they really want control over their stories. So they're authentic, they're genuine, they believe in them, and it comes across to readers and viewers as they're engaging with the stories as well. So it's a great opportunity for creators to be able to pull back that control.
So speaking of stories, you know, I don't want to talk politics, but let's just say twenty twenty four is vastly different than twenty sixteen when you began your protest for civil rights during the national Anthem. I'm curious as to how you would characterize the climate for activism in sports for professional athletes today versus eight years ago.
I look at it very similar. It is a extreme importance.
We know and we see the political landscape and the political climate. It's very important that we're active. It's very important that we're pushing forward. And you know, on my end, as we're doing that, I'm also focused on building a phenomenal company and platform with Loomy.
So it's a very unique time that we're in.
Are you done with sports calling?
I'm never done with sports.
I'm a competitor at heart. It will always compete, and this is another opportunity for me to compete.
It's one of the things that I look at is.
Any chance I have to be in a space to be able to compete, to be able to try to be better, to try to be greater.
I'm always going to do that.
So I still get up, I do all my training four point thirty in the morning, and then I spend the rest of my day building loomy and very focused on how we create that experience for creators.
You know, just a quick followup question, Colin, what skills from sports, from your training carry over into launching and running these different startups? I mean, what's the single most important transferable skill? You find?
People?
People are the most valuable thing that you'll ever have as a company. And we have a phenomenal team. It's something I learned playing football. And also you get the leadership qualities of playing from playing football, and specifically quarterback. How do you get the best out of people? How do you put them in positions to be successful and to win at what they're doing? And if you don't have that, it doesn't work. It doesn't matter how good
your game plan is. It doesn't matter how good your strategy is if you don't have the right people, it doesn't work. So we have phenomenal people on our team already, we have phenomenal investors that are supporting us, and we're looking to expand that team.
Now, All right, good stuff, Colin, Thank you so much for joining us. Colin Kaepernick's CEO and founder of Loomy Story AI, and of course, the former quarterback for the San Francisco forty nine ers