Curastory founder and CEO Tiffany Kelly has stepped down in a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, with industry veteran Dave Dickman taking over as her replacement. Kelly will keep a majority stake in the startup, which helps video creators sell and measure in‑video ads, and portrays passing the reins of power as an effort to stabilize things at the company while also kickstarting growth.
Leadership change at Curastory as Dave Dickman takes over
The move came following the SEC settlement and Kelly’s picking of Dickman through an executive search. (Dickman had previously been a co-founder of Tagger, an influencer marketing software company that developed data-first campaign management tools through to creator marketplace know-how.) His arrival marks a pragmatic turn to enterprise sales, predictable revenue, and sharper compliance rhythms — priorities that can be reassuring for advertisers and investors after regulatory struggles.
Curastory, which launched in 2021, has scaled to some 400,000 creators, and advertisers can buy integrations directly into the creator’s video and track performance across channels. To date, investors have committed approximately $3 million to the model, according to PitchBook, with Lightspeed’s Scout Fund, Feld Ventures, and Mindspring Capital, as well as program support from Techstars and the Spark program by Amex Ventures and Project W.
When selecting a successor, Kelly underscored two goals: operating integrity and product stewardship. The brief was looking to avoid a quick flip while seeking an operator who understood the technical stack and the subtleties of influencer media buying. The early signs are that fundraising posture is also evolving; Dickman’s outreach has led to doors opening with VC firms who had previously ignored Curastory, it’s claimed.
What the SEC’s settlement means for Curastory’s future
Curastory did not reveal the details of the SEC settlement. Over the last few years, the SEC’s Enforcement Division has increased scrutiny around private-market disclosures, fundraising communications, and representations made to investors — a dynamic that has forced many venture-backed startups to formalize governance and tighten up internal controls. Leadership mechanics are a frequent byproduct when both boards and founders try to reset risk, credibility, and growth plans all at once.
The practical consequences often are as simple as having more disciplined reporting, stronger compliance reviews of marketing and sales materials, and closer board oversight. These steps increase partner confidence and improve enterprise procurement cycles for a creator-ad platform that moves paper with brands and thousands of individual creators.
Product roadmap and market background for creator ads
Curastory currently has partnerships with YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook Watch, but plans for more surfaces as the format takes off. The company is also working on AI-powered tooling to automatically set up campaigns and improve creator, content, and advertiser matching — a place where improved operations can help drive increased throughput as well as reduce the cost of sale for both sides of the marketplace.
Another near-term focus is attribution. Curastory wants to break the dependency on promo codes, bringing a more robust and privacy-aware approach to measurement. Tactics are likely to include modeled conversions, first-party data integrations, and lightweight incrementality testing — all strategies that fall under a broader trend in performance advertising best practices as platforms limit cross-site tracking. For advertisers, that might mean cleaner ROI signals and fewer manual workflows; for creators, more deals hitched to real outcomes as opposed to vanity metrics.
(The company is getting ready for geographic expansion to Canada, Australia, and the UK, where brand interest in creator integrations is strong and media laws are set.) This growth is reflective of momentum throughout the sector: industry trackers put influencer marketing spend in the tens of billions globally, while Goldman Sachs projects that the broader creator economy could approach $480 billion within a few years as marketers shift ad dollars from traditional channels to creator-led formats.
Funding headwinds and representation in venture capital
The leadership transition also exposes a recurring fact of life in venture capital: access is not evenly enjoyed.
Crunchbase diversity analyses have repeatedly tallied Black-founded startups at around 1% of U.S. venture dollars in recent periods, with women-only founding teams hanging out around 2%. Report after report, including ProjectDiane, have long held that the share for Black women founders is a fraction of this. In that context, a CEO who has relationships with the industry can make a significant difference in the fundraising conversation – particularly later-Seed and Series A markets where signal matters and network density means magnified influence.
What to watch next for Curastory and its new leadership
Crucial metrics over the next few quarters will include whether Curastory is able to land fresh institutional investment, sign brand-name advertisers under stronger compliance regimes quickly enough, and whether its product’s AI and attribution improvements yield higher creator earnings and better advertiser retention. The competitive pressure from creator commerce and sponsorship shopping platforms is real, but Curastory’s all-in-one approach — creative tools, deals, and measurement in one place — could ring true as brands demand a peek behind the curtain at performance.
For now, the message is continuity with accountability: A founder stays engaged as a majority owner and operator while an executive with operational experience takes over to navigate what regulatory expectations are and scale the business. If the execution matches intent, then the next chapter of the company is likely to be marked less by a settlement that precipitated the shift and more so by how effectively it can convert creator reach into tangible—compounding!—revenue for brands and creators alike.