Company: CREATORS

Investors: Google for Startups’ Black Founders Fund

Interview with: Co-Founder and CMO Nohoa Arcanjo

Google for Startups Brasil launched Black Founders Fund in September, a R$5m investment fund to finance 30 early stage startups founded and run by afro-descendente entrepreneurs in Brazil. 

CREATORS, a Brazilian on-demand marketplace for creative services, was one of the first companies selected to participate as part of the program. CREATORS is founded by Nohoa Arcanjo, former Communications Coordinator at Pandora and Coca Cola Clothing, and Rodrigo Allgayer, former Art and Creative Director for companies such as Fiat, McDonald’s, Unilever, Ambev, Pepsico, and RedBull, and was bootstrapped until receiving the new funding from Google. 

LAVCA interviewed Co-Founder and CMO Nohoa Arcanjo to better understand the platform’s history and its own commitment to diversity within the industry. 

LAVCA: Why did you launch CREATORS in 2017, and what problem is the platform trying to solve?

Nohoa Arcanjo: The idea came from Rodrigo Allgayer, our founder, who, after working for national and multinational advertising agencies, tried to work more independently and lead projects where he hired other freelancers. Realizing that the market had a lot of quality professionals and a lot of projects on-demand, he decided to invest in the idea of a network that connects both sides in a trusted and agile way.

During my previous experience at Pandora, I also detected these noises when I used to request services on demand, so in 2019, I decided to co-found CREATORS, with the mission to transform the on-demand talent hiring model in the creative space. In less than 24 hours, CREATORS matches talent with creative opportunities. We bring together qualified creatives and renowned companies on a single platform.

Finding and hiring freelancers can be a long and exhausting task. CREATORS streamlines this process and facilitates the comparison between profiles, in addition to taking care of contract editing, payment scheduling and email exchanges.

LAVCA: How would you describe CREATORS?

Nohoa Arcanjo: CREATORS is an HRTech that provides creative work on-demand, connecting talents from the creative industry to companies through a platform with highly-qualified human curatorship. In order to be the most trusted network for the creative community, in 2019 the startup received an [undisclosed] angel investment and today has about 2,000 validated talents and more than 60 active clients, including brands such as Pernod Ricard, Vice, and Easynvest.

LAVCA: How have you financed your operations, and are you looking to raise capital in the coming year?

Nohoa Arcanjo: CREATORS was initially funded with US$10k out of pocket from the company’s founders. Two years later, we received our first angel investment, which helped us further improve our product offering. 

We are currently fundraising and are thrilled to have Google for Startups as our first investor. With this new capital, we intend to better structure our sales processes and pipeline in order to expand our commercial reach and offer even more robust resources on the platform to continue with our mission of serving large companies and creators.

LAVCA: What challenges has the team faced to ensure good matches between companies and creators?


Nohoa Arcanjo: The main challenge has been working towards winning our clients’ trust so they can hire the on-demand talent we offer within the platform. We are investing in a highly curated community of talent, with robust features such as smart contracts and payment integrations in order to reduce friction and earn our client’s trust. Throughout our journey, we have learned to understand the important role we play as mediators in providing perfect matches to the companies that come to our platform. Large companies and Talents need specialized support.

LAVCA: Is CREATORS only intended for creatives who come from a diverse background? If so, how does the company ensure diversity standards are met when onboarding new individuals into the platform?

Nohoa Arcanjo: The CREATORS’ community seeks to meet and represent all skills being solicited and required of the creative and technology industry. In order to expand our reach beyond our initial talent pool, since our MVP we implemented a business model where we remunerate Curators and Talent Hubs for indications and referrals high-quality creative profiles. We also try to get proactively closer to women’s hubs, Black hubs, and peripheral hubs in order to ensure we are bringing the best talent and representation to the platform.