Company: Contact
Founder: Reuben Selby
Website: https://contact.xyz/
Business: Contact connects talented creatives with groundbreaking brands.
About Contact and Reuben Selby
Clients like Balenciaga, Burberry, Depop, Farfetch, i-D, Nike, Vivienne Westwood, and Vogue trust Contact to find the world’s most diverse creative talent. Creatives use Contact to manage their career and get paid, leaving the admin and boring bits to Contact so they can focus on the important thing – their craft.
Contact raised a £1.4 million seed round of funding led by Founders Fund, with other participants including LAUNCH (the fund led by investor Jason Calacanis), Sweet Capital (via Pippa Lamb), Rogue VC (via Alice Lloyd George) and Angel investors Simon Beckerman (co-founder of Depop), Eric Wahlforss (co-founder of SoundCloud and now Dance), Abe Burns and Joe White.
Contact offers models and photographers, with hair and makeup artists coming soon. Since starting in 2020, over 700 diverse creatives have joined Contact. The business also helps them showcase their talent and tell their story.
Reuben says the idea for Contact was inspired by his own experiences trying to break into the creative industry as a model, photographer and creative director. He realised that “middle-men” and agencies were taking cuts on both sides and often still delivering a sub-par product, with issues such as late payments. Contact was built to offer a fairer system for creatives.
