IZEA Worldwide, Inc.

PART I

ITEM 1 – BUSINESS

Our Mission

Our mission is to make creator economy solutions for marketers. We offer solutions that range from creator agency services to creator technologies to a marketplace that connects marketers with creators. By fostering these connections, we light up the creator economy with IZEAs – social-first content, made by creators, that are culturally relevant and move at the speed of culture.

Corporate Information

IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (together with its wholly-owned subsidiaries, “IZEA” or the “Company”) is a Nevada corporation that was founded in February 2006 under the name PayPerPost, Inc. and became a public company in May 2011. In March 2016, the Company formed IZEA Canada, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary incorporated in Ontario, Canada.

The Company provides value through managing custom content workflow, creator search and targeting, bidding, analytics, and payment processing (the “Managed Services”). It also enables creators to monetize their content, creativity, and influence through global brands and marketers. IZEA compensates these creators for producing unique content, such as long and short-form text, videos, photos, status updates, and illustrations, for marketers or distributing such content on behalf of marketers through their websites, blogs, and social media channels.

While most marketers engage the Company to perform the Managed Services on their behalf, marketers may also access IZEA’s marketplaces to engage creators for influencer marketing campaigns or to produce custom content on a self-service basis by licensing the Company’s technology.

Industry Background and Trends

When IZEA first launched PayPerPost in 2006, the concept of a brand paying bloggers to create sponsored content on their blogs was new and highly controversial among marketers and content creators. The Company introduced the idea when there were no ads on Facebook, YouTube, or X (formerly Twitter), and social media was largely void of corporate marketing messages. Since then, the landscape has changed dramatically. Social media usage has increased to over 6 billion worldwide fueling the rapid growth of social media platforms such as YouTube, Meta and TikTok which have democratized the creation of content. In 2025, the number of social media users is projected to eclipse linear television viewers in the United States for the first time ever. This “Social Singularity” marks a significant shift in the marketing landscape and is prompting marketers to allocate more of their marketing spend to the creator economy. Marketing spend on influencer marketing tripled between 2019 and 2023 to more than $6 billion and is projected to continue to rise. Goldman Sachs estimates the total global addressable market of the creator economy to grow to $480 billion by 2027.

Our Business

IZEA is a creator economy solutions company that leverages its pioneering marketing technology to empower brands to engage and transact with a diverse range of social influencers and content creators. We pride ourselves on launching the innovative concept of an influencer marketplace in 2006 with the introduction of our inaugural platform, PayPerPost. Since then, we have evolved our product and service offerings in innovative ways to better serve our clients which span from Fortune 10 brands to independent content creators. Our product and service offerings come in three forms:

Creator Agency Services: Commonly referred to as ‘Managed Services,’ we partner with marketers to develop and execute influencer marketing campaigns. This includes marketing services related to creator strategy, creator partnerships, creator content, performance media and social commerce. Historically, these managed services have accounted for nearly all of our revenue. These services are supported by our proprietary creator technology platforms.

Creator Technologies: We offer proprietary technology platforms that enable managing creator campaigns, creator relationships and creator transactions. Clients can choose between two modes of engagement. Firstly, they can opt for our ‘Managed Services’, where our team of professionals oversees their initiatives. This hands-on approach allows our clients to fully leverage our expertise, from strategizing and planning to executing collaborations. Secondly, we offer ‘Software as a Service’ (“SaaS”) tools for those who prefer a more independent approach. With this option, customers can manage their own programs using our intuitive, self-service software tools.

Creator Marketplaces: We operate a two-sided creator economy marketplace that connects brands and creators. In October 2022, we launched The Creator Marketplace (“Marketplace”) on IZEA.com, replacing and enhancing the functionality of Shake, a legacy marketplace product. IZEA.com provides creators with powerful tools to present their work to marketers (“Listings”). It allows marketers to search a database of influencers eager to work with brands and purchase directly through the platform. In addition to searching creator Listings, marketers can create their own “Casting Calls,” allowing them to solicit creators to participate in their campaigns openly. This offering makes it easier for Marketers to identify and establish communications with influencers. Rather than searching for influencers and doing outreach, influencers now come to brands.

Our Technologies

Our technology platforms have evolved over the years in response to user needs and industry dynamics. In January 2023 we launched IZEA Flex (“Flex”) as our flagship platform for enterprise influencer marketing, replacing The IZEA Exchange (“IZEAx”). Flex greatly improved upon process and workflows to be more ‘open’ and flexible to meet a continuum of customer campaign management requirements. This approach allowed marketers to work with influencers and their representation on any platform in whatever way they see fit - while retaining data, tracking, and operational organization. As AI has emerged as a new technology, we rapidly integrated AI into our exiting flagship platform and created a new innovative AI content platform called Form AI. Our two primary technologies are as follows:

Flex. Flex is a robust suite of tools that enhance IZEA’s ability to manage influencer marketing at scale. Beyond enabling seamless campaign execution, Flex empowers IZEA’s internal teams to measure influencer marketing performance with precision. Campaign metrics can be tracked at key points within the campaign and easily compared against benchmarks. Throughout 2024, we introduced several key features to the platform to enhance its capabilities in influencer marketing. The first significant addition is the ability to review draft content within the platform and involve clients in that process ensuring proper brand messaging before content goes live. We added a client-facing tool to review and approve talent lists before the talent is contracted, giving clients control and automating the engagement process. We built in Campaign Safeguards to provide our team with a tool to ensure their campaign spending (including influencer payouts and other campaign expenses) stays within the budget. We also introduced IZZY, an AI chat tool that contains knowledge of our creator database. Flex is comprised of multiple core modules:

• Discover allows customer and IZEA teams to search through content from millions of influencer social profiles while filtering across channels, demographics, and interests.

•Content Mine a content management tool that collects and measures influencer content, providing real-time insights and AI-powered content analysis of brands coupled with social monitoring tools that track hashtags, keywords, and brand mentions across leading social platforms to measure performance;

•Integrations provides deep integrations with tools such as Google Analytics and Shopify, unlocking additional data sources and insights for internal teams;

•Tracking Links delivers real-time tracking metrics for influencer marketing efforts, enabling conversion tracking, spend analysis, and purchase attribution when coupled with our integrations.

•Contacts centralizes contact management across the creator ecosystem, including influencers, agents, and legal representatives, with automated smart lists based on demographic data; and

•Transactions streamlines electronic creator payments, reducing processing costs and providing a searchable transaction database.

Beyond enabling seamless campaign execution, Flex empowers IZEA’s internal teams to measure influencer marketing performance with precision. Campaign metrics can be tracked at key points within the campaign and easily compared against benchmarks.

Throughout 2024, we introduced several key features to the platform to enhance its capabilities in influencer marketing. The first significant addition is the ability to review draft content within the platform and involve clients in that process ensuring proper brand messaging before content goes live. We added a client-facing tool to review and approve talent lists before the talent is contracted, giving clients control and automating the engagement process. We built in Campaign Safeguards to provide our team with a tool to ensure their campaign spending (including influencer payouts and other campaign expenses) stays within the budget. We also introduced IZZY, an AI chat tool that contains knowledge of our creator database.

Marketplace. In October 2022, we launched The Creator Marketplace (“Marketplace”) on IZEA.com, replacing and enhancing the functionality of Shake, a legacy marketplace product. IZEA.com provides creators with powerful tools to present their work to marketers (“Listings”). It allows marketers to search a database of influencers eager to work with brands and purchase directly through the platform. In addition to searching creator Listings, marketers can create their own “Casting Calls,” allowing them to solicit creators to participate in their campaigns openly. This offering makes it easier for Marketers to identify and establish communications with influencers. Rather than searching for influencers and doing outreach, influencers now come to brands.

In addition to the Marketplace functionality added to IZEA.com in 2022, we have implemented a suite of generative AI tools designed to help creators and marketers create content.

FormAI. Form AI unveiled by IZEA in June 2023, represents a significant advancement in integrating AI into the influencer marketing ecosystem. It is a comprehensive suite of AI tools designed specifically for those in the creator economy. FormAI helps users enhance their creative process and aids in text and visual content development.

With FormAI, IZEA is focused on increasing content production efficiency while lowering costs for marketers and creators. The platform seamlessly integrates advanced AI models—including ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E 3—into a unified, user-friendly experience with superior content control, predictability, and ease of use.

As we continue to refine our strategies, we remain dedicated to expanding Marketplace by integrating cutting-edge features, enhancing user experience, and ensuring our SaaS capabilities evolve alongside the influencer marketing industry. As brands grow and their needs become more sophisticated, Marketplace serves as a seamless gateway to Managed Services, providing them with advanced strategy, hands-on campaign execution, and access to premium talent they might not otherwise reach on their own.

We sell influencer marketing and custom content campaigns through our client development team and platforms. We target regional, national, and global brands and advertising agencies in two primary ways:

Client Development Team. During the fourth quarter of 2024, we shifted our strategies to reduce costs, enhance efficiencies, and focus on serving all markets, including international clients, primarily on North American hub. Presently, our client development team (sales) is assigned throughout the U.S. and Canada, having ended our sales and marketing presence in Australia, China, and the United Kingdom. Client Development team members are responsible for proactively identifying and managing sales opportunities for brands and agencies.

Demand Generation. We utilize various marketing strategies and platforms to create demand for our Managed Services and SaaS offerings. Our demand-generation activities result in a large funnel of potential customers, and we view marketers and creators as our customers. We aim to funnel our customers into the right offering to accomplish their objectives, be it Managed Services, SaaS, or a combination thereof.

Our overarching strategy is to offer creator economy solutions at every stage of the customer journey, no matter the size of the customer today. Our software offerings start at $6 per month, while certain Managed Services customers may spend millions of dollars with us annually. Our SaaS solutions are designed to be low-cost and low-touch, requiring few IZEA personnel to manage customer relationships. Conversely, our Managed Services offering is a white glove premium service, with a team of professionals catering to each customer’s needs.

IZEA’s leadership team has an extensive background in marketing and has been responsible for implementing marketing programs for some of the world’s biggest companies. We focus our corporate marketing efforts on increasing brand awareness, communicating our platform advantages, generating qualified leads for our sales team, growing our creator network, and driving self-service sign-ups to our platforms. Our corporate marketing plan is designed to continually elevate brand awareness and generate demand for our software and services. We rely on a growing number of channels in this area, including third-party social media platforms (e.g., Meta, TikTok, and YouTube), paid search engine marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, and events.

Customers and Revenue

We generate revenue primarily from our managed services when a marketer (typically a brand, agency, or partner) pays us to provide custom content, influencer marketing, amplification, or other campaign management services (“Managed Services”). Additionally, we generate revenue from subscription fees charged to access our software platforms, license and transaction fees from self-service customers, and fees such as inactivity fees, early cash-out fees, and other miscellaneous fees charged to users of our platforms (collectively, “SaaS Services Revenue”).

As discussed in more detail within “Critical Accounting Policies and Use of Estimates” under “Note 1. Company and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” under Part I, Item 7 herein, revenue from Self-service Fees is reported on a net basis. Revenue from all other sources, including Managed Services, Subscription and License Fees, and Other Fees, are reported on a gross basis. We categorize these sources into two primary groups: (1) Managed Services and (2) SaaS Services, which include Subscription and License revenues, as well as Other Fees.

We provide services to customers in multiple industry segments. Our business serves companies and brands directly and indirectly through advertising and public relations agencies. In many cases, influencer marketing dollars flow through the advertising or public relations agency, even when we have a direct relationship with the brand.

We generate the majority of our revenue from our Managed Services customers. Managed Services accounted for approximately 97.7% and 98.7% of our revenue during the twelve months ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. SaaS Services accounted for approximately 2.3% and 1.3% of our revenue during the twelve months ended December 31, 2024, and 2023, respectively.

Changes in how we control and manage our platforms, contractual terms, business practices, or other changes in accounting standards or interpretations may affect our revenue reporting. For more information about our revenue recognition policies, see “Note 1. Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” under Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report.

Most of our customers are in the United States (“U.S.”). Two customers each accounted for more than 10% of our revenue during the twelve months ended December 31, 2024, and one customer accounted for more than 10% of our revenue during the twelve months ended December 31, 2023.

Privacy and Security

We are committed to protecting the personal privacy of our marketers and creators. Any personal information we collect is processed in compliance with privacy laws (discussed below, under “Government Regulation”), and we believe that we employ reasonable and appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect personal information.

Competition

We face competition from multiple companies in the influencer and content marketing categories. Direct and indirect competitors in the influencer marketing space include Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Linqia, and Upfluence. We also face competition in the creator economy from companies such as Fiverr and Upwork. In addition, many traditional advertising agencies, public relations firms, and niche consultancies provide content development and conduct manual influencer outreach programs.

We also compete with traditional advertising media such as direct mail, television, radio, cable, and print for a share of marketers' total advertising budgets. Many current and potential competitors enjoy competitive advantages over us, such as longer operating histories, greater name recognition, larger customer bases, greater access to advertising space on high-traffic websites, and significantly greater financial, technical, sales, and marketing resources.

Proprietary Rights

Proprietary rights are crucial to our success and competitive position. We rely on intellectual property and trade secret laws, confidentiality procedures, and contractual provisions to evolve and secure our proprietary rights.

As of December 31, 2024, we owned 52 trademarks (32 domestic trademark registrations in the U.S. and 20 foreign registrations on the International Register) and had 4 total pending applications in the U.S. and Nigeria. During the year ended December 31, 2024, we abandoned 3 inactive U.S. trademarks. As of December 31, 2024, we also owned approximately 356 domain names related to the various aspects of IZEA’s products and services.

Government Regulation

We are subject to many foreign and domestic laws and regulations that affect companies conducting business on the Internet, many of which are still evolving and could be interpreted by regulators or the courts in ways that could adversely affect our business model. In the U.S. and abroad, laws relating to the liability of providers of online services for the activities of their users and other third parties are currently being tested by several claims. These regulations and laws may involve taxation, tariffs, privacy and data protection, consumer protection, content, copyrights, distribution, electronic contracts and other communications, and online payment services. In addition, governments may seek to censor content available on our platforms or attempt to block access to our platforms. Accordingly, adverse legal or regulatory developments could substantially harm our business.

We are subject to various federal, state, and international laws and regulations governing privacy, information security, and data protection laws (“Privacy Laws”). Legislators and/or regulators in the countries in which we operate are increasingly adopting or revising Privacy Laws. All U.S. states have passed data breach notification laws, and others have adopted or expanded laws and regulations that address the security of personal information and the collection and use of personal information through websites. In particular, California passed a broad-reaching consumer privacy law in June 2018, which went into effect on January 1, 2020, called the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). In response to the CCPA, IZEA posted an updated California Privacy Notice on its websites. Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act (“CDPA”) came into effect on January 1, 2023, which is also when the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act of 2020 (“CPRA”) took effect, and new consumer privacy laws have been passed in 2024 in Florida, Montana, Oregon, and Texas; with new laws passed or expected to be passed in 2025 in Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Tennessee. The U.S. Congress has previously expressed consideration of the implementation of a national Privacy Law. Outside the U.S., the European Union’s (“EU”) General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), which became effective May 25, 2018, has an extra-territorial scope and substantial fines (up to 4% of global annual revenue or €20M, whichever is greater), and also in 2018, Brazil passed a law similar to GDPR. Other countries have passed or are considering similar laws, such as India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act and China’s Personal Information Protection Law. Enforcement of Privacy Laws also has increased over the past few years. Accordingly, new, and revised Privacy Laws, together with stepped-up enforcement of existing Privacy Laws, could significantly affect our current and planned privacy, data protection, information security-related practices, our collection, use, sharing, retention, and safeguarding of consumer and/or employee information, and some of our current or planned business activities.

The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act has provisions that limit but do not eliminate our liability for linking to third-party websites. These websites may contain materials that infringe on third parties’ copyrights or other intellectual property rights of third parties. We must comply with the statutory requirements of this act. Complying with these various laws could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business.

As an e-commerce service provider, we are subject to Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 (the “FTC Act”), which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices, including advertising and marketing on the Internet. Many states have consumer protection laws similar to the FTC Act prohibiting unfair and deceptive business practices. In some instances, we are retained by marketers to manage their advertising campaigns through our platforms, thereby increasing our exposure as not only the service provider but also the medium through which advertisements are broadcast. In addition to those requirements, the marketers, creators, and agencies that use our platforms are subject to specific guidelines and regulations regarding online advertising, such as the Dot Com Disclosures - Information about Online Advertising, issued by the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”), the FTC’s Enforcement Policy Statement on Deceptively Formatted Advertisements, issued in 2015, and the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (known as the Endorsement Guide) which were adopted in 2009, updated and reissued by the FTC in 2013, and further clarified in 2015 and 2024, and are regularly enforced. The Endorsement Guide, for example, significantly extends the scope of potential liability associated with the use of testimonials and endorsements, including injecting endorsement requirements into advertising methods such as blogging, posting on Instagram, tweeting, and other online postings of sponsored advertisements by a creator. In particular, the Endorsement Guide provides that creators must always clearly and conspicuously disclose the material connection between the creator and the marketer, such as if they received consideration for blogging or posting about a particular product, service, brand, or the like, whether the consideration comprises something tangible (i.e. cash, discounts, objects that are provided to them at no cost, even for testing purposes) or intangible (such as accolades and more prominent future blogging or posting opportunities). In addition, the creator must not make claims about the product or service they are discussing that go beyond what the marketer could say about it. The Endorsement Guide further provides that the marketer should ensure that creators speaking on its behalf are provided guidance and training to ensure their claims, statements, and representations are truthful, transparent, and adequately substantiated, and monitor the activities of creators speaking on its behalf. Suppose a creator, blogger, agency, or marketer should fail to comply with the Dot Com Disclosures, the Endorsement Guide, or any other FTC rule, regulation, or policy, which may be manifest by making deceptive, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims and representations, failing to disclose a sponsorship relationship or otherwise. In that case, the various parties related to the advertising campaign (including the service provider of the platform over which the campaign is managed) may be subject to liability due to such non-compliance. In the event it was found that we (or one of our marketer customers) failed to comply with the FTC Act or state consumer protection laws, it could result in the potential imposition of equitable redress or penalties that could include monetary damages, a modification of certain business practices, or an order to cease certain aspects of our operations. Other countries, such as Canada and EU member states, also have laws, regulations, and rules that mirror the FTC Endorsement Guide and similar consumer protection laws and guidance.

More generally, if there is negative consumer perception and mistrust of the practice of compensating creators to endorse the marketers’ specific products, then marketers may become less interested in using influencer marketing platforms like ours as a means for advertising, which could, in turn, materially adversely affect our business and financial results.

We are committed to promoting ethical social sponsorship practices and have established terms of service for users of our platforms, which refer to the Endorsement Guide and include one or more of the following:

Mandatory Disclosure. Our terms of service require the disclosure of the sponsored relationship between the marketer and creator. Failure to disclose the sponsored relationship violates our terms of service, which may result in the withholding of payment for the sponsorship and the creator being removed from our network.

Freedom of Choice. Creators can choose which brands to work with and what sponsored content they want to publish. Our platforms do not auto-inject a marketer's message into an influencer's social media network.

Authentic Voice. We encourage the creator to be honest when selecting sponsorships. Similarly, we enable marketers to create opportunities that allow the creator to write the sponsorship in their own words, provided that a creator always adheres to our terms of service and code of ethics, including disclosing their sponsored relationships at all times while using any of the platform.

Transparency of Identity. Our platforms are designed to be an open, safe environment for marketers, creators, and users. We do not cloak the identities of marketers or creators. Both parties involved in a potential transaction can see each other's profiles and make informed decisions before engaging with each other.

Pre-Publication Marketer Review. Marketers may request to review their sponsored content before publication and to request a change to the sponsored content before publication in the case of factual inaccuracies.

Reporting Violations. We have zero tolerance for violations of our terms of service and encourage the reporting of infringements directly to IZEA. If violations are reported, we promptly investigate them, and, in appropriate cases, marketers, creators, and users are removed from our network and prohibited from using our sites.

We believe and have included requirements within our terms of service, based on positions taken by certain federal courts and the FTC, that communications and messages disseminated by our platform users are subject to and must comply at all times with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) requirements.

To date, we have not been materially impacted by the rules governing messaging over social media networks and social sponsorship, including the CAN-SPAM Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. However, we cannot predict the impact of future regulations on us and marketers and creators who use our platforms, nor can we predict the effects of attempts to circumvent our mechanisms designed to ensure compliance.

Employees

As of December 31, 2024, we had 110 full-time employees and 1 part-time employee. In connection with a strategic workforce realignment, 32 employees were notified in December of their termination, effective January 2, 2025. None of our employees is represented by a collective bargaining agreement, and we have not experienced any work stoppage. Our future success depends on our continuing ability to attract and retain highly qualified engineers, sales and marketing, account management, and senior management personnel.

Available Information

IZEA Worldwide, Inc. is incorporated in the state of Nevada. Our corporate address is 1317 Edgewater Dr. #1880, Orlando, FL 32804, and our telephone number is (407) 674-6911. We maintain a corporate website at https://izea.com. Our Annual Report, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and Current Reports on Form 8-K, including exhibits and amendments to those reports filed or furnished according to Sections 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, are available free of charge on our website, as soon as reasonably practicable after they have been filed with or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Our SEC reports and other filings can be accessed through the investor’s section of our website or https://www.sec.gov. Information on our website does not constitute part of this Annual Report or any other report we file or furnish with the SEC.

Investors and others should note that we use social media to communicate with our subscribers and the public about our Company, our services, new product developments, and other matters. Any information that we consider to be material to an investor’s evaluation of our Company will be included in filings accessible through the SEC website and/or may be disseminated using our investor relations website (https://izea.com) and press releases. However, we encourage investors, the media, and others interested in our Company to follow our social media channels: @izea on X (formerly Twitter), @izea on Instagram, @izea on TikTok, and IZEA on Facebook. The information contained in these social media channels is not part of and is not incorporated into or included in this Annual Report.