Hipset cofounder Mazy Kazerooni with Justin Bieber and Lil Twist.

Celebrities may have goods looks, money, the spotlight, and a fan base, but they don’t always know how to make money off their popularity. Today, Y Combinator company Hipset introduced a multichannel YouTube network that helps musicians grow and make money off their online audience.

CEO Matt Schlicht said that while many artists may have a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, they are “shockingly small” on YouTube. Hipset develops these artists by optimizing their metadata, defining their video strategy, scheduling their uploads, setting up collaborations with top YouTubers, and using technology to develop and retain their YouTube audience.

Hipset works with record labels and artist management companies, who use their technology to distribute content and increase their clients’ reach on Facebook. Hipset celebrities include Tyga, Souljaboy, Lil Twist, Daughtry, 3 Doors Down, Rob Zombie, and Ryan Leslie. Schlict said these celebrities have a combined 1 billion views on YouTube and distribution channels to over 35 million fans.

The Y Combinator-backed company first launched as Tracks.by in 2012. Back then, the site was a place where artists could showcase their new work, and Tracks.by helped campaigns “go viral.” It also connected brands with celebrities to facilitate for celebrity endorsements.

As Hipset, the goal is to “hack through the world of online monetization” to optimize the Internet for musicians. In addition to the YouTube network, Hipset offers Hipset Boost, a suite of promotion tools to help artists grow their online audience. In addition to announcing the YouTube network, Hipset also announced adding new features into Boost that enable artists to require fans to follow them on social networks, in order to access exclusive videos.

Hipset has received backing from Menlo Ventures, Y Combinator, Venture51, Matt Mullenweg, Alexis Ohanian, Justin Kan, Brad Hunstable, Josh Elman, Alex Le, Garry Tan, Nils Johnson, David Wu, Harj Taggar, Michael Weiksner, Erik Moore, and Apu Gupta.

Image credit: Hipset Facebook page

“The raffle structure is the best way to fundraise and collect consumer data,” said founder Bryan Baum on stage at Y Combinator’s demo day.  ”Auctions only get money from highest bidder, but raffles open this up to masses and get money from everyone.”

Rather than buying a paper ticket and dropping it in a glass jar, people enter a Prizeo raffle by making a small donation to a celebrity’s chosen cause and choosing friends to include in the experience. A winner is then chosen at random to embark upon their adventure. Runners up win prizes too, and anyone who makes a donation can see where their money went.

Celebrity charity auctions have been around for decades, but are usually reserved for a wealthy elite. Prizeo expands these opportunities to average people, but also capitalizes on the powerful reach of celebrities and influencers to raise money for good causes. To make this work, Prizeo needs a strong network of celebrities. The startup has thus partnered with talent agency WME which works with more than 1500 of the top celebrities and brands in the world. During beta testing, the platform raised over $100K and found that brands are willing to pay more than $50,000 a campaign.

In addition to collecting donations, Prizeo also collects data. The site has access to users credit card information, as well as demographic data, interests, affinities, and their social media influence. Baum said no-one has been able to collect data this way before, and it will be a valuable way for influencers to monetize and understand their followers, and connect with them over a charitable cause.

Prizeo combines the glamour of celebrity auctions with the fundraising power of charity raffles, puts it online, and gives everyone the opportunity to spend a day with a boy band. “Squeel!”

The Creative Artists Agency is raising a $20 million venture capital fund, according to an SEC filing.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. One, smaller venture capital funds, or ‘micro-VCs,’ have gained momentum in the past few years. A Kauffman report issued in 2012 found that the best-performing venture capital funds are under $250 million, and many institutional investors want to get in early with promising startups who are wary of taking money from big firms. Secondly, many corporations are forming venture arms to capitalize on the innovation happening in the tech world. Investing in startups not only yields potential returns, but can also help businesses stay ahead of the curve.

Add these forces to the increasingly hip perspective that mainstream America is taking of Silicon Valley, Los Angeles’ emerging startup scene, and the rise of celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Alba in the tech world, and you understand why a Hollywood talent agency might want to dabble in venture capital.

Back in 2007, CAA attempted to raise a $150 to $200 million venture capital fund to invest in startups in the digital/entertainment sector. The company worked with well-known venture firm Draper Fisher Jurveston on the project, but it never came to fruition. Around the same time, talent agency William Morris partnered with Accel Partners and Venrock on a similar endeavor, to no avail.

Now, CAA is back at it again. Its clients include a Who’s Who list of Hollywood celebrities, including Will Smith, Meryl Streep, and Steven Spielberg. CAA also negotiates deals for major corporations like Coca-Cola, Dell, and Mattel. Ultimately, talent agencies and venture firms have the same goal- to find and sign the Next Big Thing.

We will see whether intuition for stardom translates into a intuition for startup success.

This story was first reported by Fortune.

The first users of Minit, an iPhone app to record and screen short videos, may have found themselves revealing intimate life stories to Noa Tishby, a model, producer, actress, and in a recent development, a tech entrepreneur.

“Minit is a platform for personal stories,” Tishby explained. “It is in a way like having your own reality show.” The Israeli starlet recently joined the Tel Aviv-based startup to head up business development.

Got a minute and a story to share? The recently launched app is available for free on the App Store. Sign up, and you’ll be led through a wizard to help you get started. The app is integrated with Facebook and Twitter to help users quickly discover which friends are registered. (Unless you happen to be Israeli, you’ll probably be the first in your extended network.)

Like Twitter, you can follow users whether you know them or not — unsurprisingly, Tishby has the most followers.

Once you fill out a profile, a video stream will appear with 60-second clips. Minit users are chatting about relationships, style, and a variety of light-hearted topics — if you’re incentivized to do so, you can issue a video comment in response. Videos can be intimately shared between friends, or publicly broadcast to the world.

The team describes Minit as “100% video. No filters. No text. No photos. No bull.” Tishby prefers the snappy term, “voicemail for video”, and told me that she routinely uses the app to send messages to friends while boarding international flights.

It sounds promising, but the user interface is still a bit raw. I’m told its doable (it takes a long thumbnail tap) but I couldn’t find an easy way to delete clips once they’re posted. I had a few technical issues with the sound quality, and the videos are slow to load. To be fair, the app is still in the nascent stages of development.

The company may have landed a supermodel, but it faces strong competition from headline-grabbing social video startups, like Airtime and Socialcam. However, with all the recent press about celebrity investors, this may be one of the few cases where one has come on board as a cofounder.

When the three Israeli developers behind Minit approached her, Tishby told me she was intrigued by the nexus between entertainment and technology. “I have been approached by tech companies in the U.S. and Israel that wanted me to partner with them,” said Tishby, adding that she was “floored” by the concept for Minit.

The app is self-funded, but Tishby told me they are in the process of reaching out to potential investors to secure a first round.

---

Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

---

Tracks.by helps celebrities and artists make the most of their online distribution by providing opportunities to enhance and monetize their reach.

On the site, artists can showcase their recent work for fans to view, like, share, and comment on. The technology enables artists to release new content and helps the campaigns go viral. Tracks.by also connects companies with celebrities, allowing businesses to take advantage of celebrity endorsements .

“Celebrities have huge distribution, but they do not yet have an easy way to make money from it,” said founder Matt Schlicht. “Brands would love for celebrities to endorse them online, so we figured out a way to bring these two things together.”

Companies pay Tracks.by to get the celebrities to make endorsements online, and Tracks.by pays the celebrities, keeping a cut. It also measures the impact of the endorsements, so businesses can see where their money is going.

Tracks.by has nailed the hard part, which Schlicht identifies as getting celebrities on board. It already works with 52 of Billboard’s Hot 100 Artists and a host of record labels and companies.

Right now, Tracks.by is only courting musicians, but it will be expanding to athletes and actors.