Cameo
Consumer/creator marketplaceUSA
New to Unitard
π€ Acquired
PeakΒ $1 BillionToday
~-90%
from peak
- π¦Became a unicornMar 2021
- πPeak valuation$1 Billion β21
- πBecame a UnitardMar 2024
- πΈLast valuation~$100M
Current status
$28M Series D cramdown at <$100M (Mar 2024)
The rise & fall
6 moments Β· 2017β2024The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2017
2017
Founded in Chicago
A marketplace where celebrities record personalized video shout-outs for fans.
Wikipedia
Mar 2021
Mar 2021
The peak: $1B for celebrity shout-outs$1B
A pandemic-boom Series C values the marketplace at about $1B, and aggressive expansion follows.
Fortune
2022β23
2022β23
Demand normalizes; layoffs stack up
As the boom unwinds, Cameo cuts staff in repeated rounds.
The Information
2022β24
From the inside Β· Glassdoor reviews, 2022β24
Glassdoor reviews from the post-boom years described strategy and priorities that changed every few months and repeated layoff rounds, with employees recalling that money still went to parties and trips even as colleagues were let go.
Mar 2024
Mar 2024
The cramdown: slips out of the club
A $28M Series D resets the valuation below $100M β roughly a tenth of the peak β and unicorn status is gone.
The Information
π¬ entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor β; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Cameo is a US marketplace where celebrities sell personalized video shout-outs to fans. It rode a pandemic-era boom to a ~$1B valuation in 2021 and expanded aggressively. As demand normalized the company conducted multiple layoffs, and a March 2024 Series D financing valued it below $100M in a cramdown, stripping its unicorn status.
Source: The Information; Fortune; FTL financials in FTC settlement
Founders
- Devon Townsendco-founder & chief product officer
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.
