- The creator and marketing company Triller is finally trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker ILLR.
- The company went public via a reverse merger with a Hong Kong-based company called AGBA.
- Triller was exploring going public as early as 2020.
The creator services, entertainment, and marketing company Triller — which once positioned itself as a rival to TikTok — made its stock market debut on the Nasdaq Wednesday.
The company went public via a reverse merger with AGBA Group Holding Limited, a Hong Kong-based wealth management and healthcare firm. A reverse merger occurs when a private company goes public by acquiring a publicly listed company.
Triller’s stock was down about 20% in its first hour of trading.
It’s been a tough few years for other creator startups that have made public market debuts, as companies like FaZe Clan and Clubhouse Media Group have struggled to show the type of growth that keeps investors happy. The creator economy has largely failed to live up to lofty valuations set by VCs, though influencer marketing remains a bright spot in the category.
Triller’s journey to a public listing has been a winding one. It explored going public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in late 2020, Reuters reported. That didn’t come to fruition, and in December 2021, the company announced plans to complete a reverse merger with a company called Seachange International. It shut down that effort in June 2022 to instead do a direct listing. That also didn’t last, as Triller switched again to a reverse merger with AGBA in April and withdrew its direct filing with the SEC in May.
Now that investors can buy Triller stock, listed as ILLR, what is the company’s pitch?
Triller’s business today includes a mix of creator, marketing, and entertainment services. It owns its namesake TikTok-style video app, as well as a fan engagement tool called Fangage, an influencer-marketing platform called Julius, a combat-sports streamer called TrillerTV (formerly dubbed FITE), and a text-marketing tool Cliqz, among other products.
AGBA’s investor materials around Triller talk about how its different products interact to serve marketers and creators. Creators on Fangage can connect to services like Julius or the Triller app, for example.
In filings, AGBA also highlights Triller’s work in the buzzy area of AI. The company described Triller’s business in an August filing as “a global, artificial intelligence powered technology platform that serves a broad constituency of creators and brands around the world.”
It’s not the first time that Triller’s tapped into a trendy topic in tech to connect with investors. In October 2022, as Big Tech and startups alike were captivated by the idea of digital worlds called “metaverses,” Triller announced it was launching its own version called the Metaverz. AGBA said in its August filing that the Metaverz could offer augmented reality and virtual experiences, including virtual merchandise stores, for creators and brands.
Who are Triller’s customers?
Creators, brands, and consumers are the main cohorts that AGBA touts as central to Triller’s business in its recent filings. In its description of those stakeholders, the company has discussed both customers that Triller worked with directly and others that it “tracked” but did not have direct relationships with.
For example, in an August preliminary proxy statement, the company said Triller’s creator accounts grew from somewhere around 2.37 million at the start of Q1 2021 to around 2.47 million in the first quarter of this year. But that tally includes creators the company doesn’t directly work with but rather tracks to help “brands identify creators that may be appropriate for their marketing activities.”
The company had a similar approach for tallying brand partners, examining both brands that it worked with directly and brands that it tracked but were not actively using its products. The number of direct brands it worked with declined from around 250 in Q1 2021 to around 200 in Q1 2024, per a chart in AGBA’s August filing.
AGBA’s tally of consumer accounts for Triller, which includes people who use its products like its Triller app and its combat streamer TrillerTV, also counted accounts that were not directly tied to its owned-and-operated products.
AGBA said that as of March 2024, Triller had about 337 million consumer accounts, including inactive accounts, across platforms like the Triller app, TrillerTV, and its combat business BKFC. It separately counted an additional 109 million consumer accounts tied to properties it didn’t own but established on behalf of brands and creator partners, including a “Triller brand customer’s social media account on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or other platforms.”
Triller’s approach to reporting on its user base has come under scrutiny in the past. In 2020 and 2021, former employees and other people with knowledge of Triller’s reporting told media outlets like Business Insider and Billboard that its public monthly active user numbers were inflated compared to internal data and what it shared with rights holders. Former Triller CEO Mike Lu told BI in October 2021 that the former employees were “disseminating inaccurate information.” Lu told Billboard in February 2021 that Triller would no longer share monthly active users or daily active users as they didn’t accurately represent its business and that it had “never inflated any user numbers.”
What do Triller’s financials look like?
Here’s a rundown of what Triller’s financials were as of early 2024, per AGBA’s filing.
- As of March 31, 2024, Triller had cash and cash equivalents of $800,000, a working capital deficit of $270.7 million, and an accumulated deficit of $1.6 billion, AGBA wrote in its filing.
- In the first three months of 2024, the company earned about $9.9 million in revenue and saw a net loss of $43 million, compared to about $9.2 million in revenue and a roughly $29 million net loss over the same period in 2023.
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The company earned $45.5 million in revenue in 2023, a 4.5% decline from 2022. Its comprehensive loss in 2023 was around $299 million, up from around $196 million in 2022. The company previously told BI that some earlier losses were tied to acquisition costs.
AGBA wrote in its August filing that Triller has incurred losses each year since its inception and may not become profitable in the future. It said the company has financial obligations which have come due in the past six months and are coming due over the next twelve months and it may not be able to meet its cash obligations as those amounts come due.
Triller has been embroiled in legal disputes with music platforms that it previously licensed songs from, contract claims from former employees and business partners, and a dispute over rent payments to the company it leased office space from. AGBA wrote that Triller “may not be able to generate sufficient cash flow to meet its current and any future debt service and other obligations, including amounts owed pursuant to new and ongoing litigation matters.”
A spokesperson for AGBA did not provide comment by time of publication. Triller did not reply to Business Insider’s request for comment.
