Zach Ferraro spent 11 years working with creators – he led strategic partnerships at Santa Monica-based Famous Birthdays (which connected brands, talent and agencies) and Venice-based Fourthwall, a platform to help creators make businesses out of their brands.

“We helped creators of all kinds launch products and brands and, in the process, it (became) clear that the highest leverage in terms of engagement and monetization was live streaming,” Ferraro said.

It was during his time at Fourthwall that Ferraro met David Tesler, the creator of a question-and-answer platform called Sendit. Tesler was building an app for interactive content and Ferraro joined him, splitting his time between San Francisco at the new gig and Los Angeles.

That interactive content app became Favorited, a Santa Monica-based live streaming startup that raised $1.3 million in pre-seed funding in mid-January from backers like Andreesen Horowitz, Hacker Fellowship Zero and Soma Capital.

While traditional streaming involves one person streaming to an audience, Favorited says it has added a social aspect that allows multiple streamers to go live together, play games during live streams and “battle” each other for gifts – which are virtual points that are purchased by the audience with real money. That money is split between Favorited and its creators where creators get 70% of the profits – a marketed difference between similar platforms that split the profit down the middle.

Favorited is emerging in a rather odd time for social media – several companies deploy live streaming in some regard, with Twitch and TikTok Live being two of the largest platforms in the space.

But TikTok’s future is dicey. The United States’ ban of TikTok began in January, but lasted for roughly one day before President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the ban temporarily to find a U.S.-based buyer for the app.

Instagram, the Meta-owned social media platform that also has live streaming capabilities, shut down its live shopping feature in 2023 after its short and unsuccessful foray into social commerce. A slew of users has now also boycotted Meta after a series of controversial policy changes around content moderation announced by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in early January.

But as large social media giants fall out of favor with young users, new entrants are ready to welcome them with open arms. Favorited has grown to 1,000% month-over-month in terms of creator payments and generated $2.5 million in a single week. One TikTok livestreamer, Jaysingz, said he has made over $40,000 on Favorited to date. DeAndre Cortez Way, better known by his stage name Soulja Boy, became an early adopter of Favorited, joining 1.3 million other users.

But Favorited isn’t the only company taking advantage of the social media shakeup. Triller Corp., a short form vertical video platform based in Hollywood, jumped 100 spots on the Apple App Store on Jan. 14, days ahead of the TikTok ban. It also created a platform to transfer TikTok content over to Triller.

“After listening to creators, it became clear there was a very real concern that the content they had spent so much time and resources creating could just disappear,” Sean Kim, the chief executive of Triller, said in a statement. “Creators are the foundation of Triller, and we are dedicated to protecting their livelihoods.”