casting-platform
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Swipecast
Swipecast is a New York-based fashion-tech marketplace that lets brands, designers, photographers and stylists discover and book models and creative talent directly, bypassing traditional agencies. Founded in 2015 by former hedge-fund manager and modeling-agency owner Peter Fitzpatrick with developer Matthias Wickenburg, the platform pays talent 90% of their fee (versus the ~67% left after agency commissions) and settles payments within one to two days. It has served clients like Estee Lauder, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, Nike and Vogue across cities including New York, LA, London, Paris and Milan.
Jennie Moser
Jennie Moser is the founder and CEO of Stagetime, a networking and portfolio platform built for performing arts professionals. A coloratura soprano trained at Northwestern and Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music, she spent years running Jennie Moser Design, building hundreds of websites for artists before turning that insight into a venture-backed company. Stagetime lets singers, instrumentalists, agents and composers build multimedia profiles, showcase performance video and audio, and connect with opportunities without maintaining separate websites. Moser has raised roughly $1.5 million in seed funding from investors including Hyde Park Angels, M25, Elevate Ventures and the IU Angel Network, reframing the messy gig economy of the arts in terms venture capitalists could understand.