OnlyFans competitor MintStars wants to rethink adult content industry

MintStars, an adult platform with paid subscribers and a streamlined payment system for content creators, was incubated at Harvard Innovation Labs in Boston in 2023. The company has backing from the likes of P2 Ventures, an investor in Polymarket, Escape Velocity, a VC firm that invests in early-stage startups, and AGE, a company with ties to cryptocurrency.

Elsewhere, Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners acquired the parent company of Pornhub and other adult sites in 2023. Venture capitalists backed SLUSHY in 2024, to the tune of over $10 million in seed funding. And investment firm Architect Capital acquired a roughly 16 percent stake in OnlyFans for more than $500 million earlier this year, according to Bloomberg.

There’s a reason adult entertainment is increasingly attractive to investors, according to Barnet Sherman, a lecturer at Boston University in corporate finance. They’re relatively simple businesses in a market with strong demand, and investors can make large profits if the platforms are sold or merged.

“Adult entertainment platforms, from the business side, went up. They’re relatively low tech and low maintenance [compared] to other industries,” he said.

MintStars, founded in 2021, presents itself as a worker-friendly option in an industry that can sometimes exploit and degrade its performers. The company gives its creators a larger piece of their earnings than some of its competitors — placing the burden for fees and transaction costs on subscribers.

Last month, MintStars announced it would take another progressive step: Creators now own a piece of the company.

“Co-ownership is not some future socialist utopian idea,” MintStars cofounder and former chief operating officer Jessica Van Meir said. “It’s something companies can make happen right now.”

Van Meir recently left MintStars and gave up her 23 percent ownership stake as she pursues a PhD in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Content creators now collectively own 20 percent and share the company’s future profits or funds if the site were to sell. (The 20 percent is divvied up among creators based on their revenue, referrals, and time spent active.)

The remaining 3 percent from Van Meir’s stake will be donated to SWOP Behind Bars, a nonprofit fighting for sex worker rights and victims of sex trafficking.

Harvard Innovation Labs, meanwhile, supports entrepreneurs and innovators across 13 Harvard schools. Since its founding in 2011, the incubator has helped over 7,000 ventures that collectively have raised more than $15 billion. Van Meir began pursuing her PhD in 2021, and MintStars joined the Harvard lab after that. (The company was selected as a semi-finalist for the 2023 Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge.)

Harvard Innovation Labs declined to comment on MintStars, and several of the company’s investors did not respond to messages.

The company is now run by Daniel Sargent, CEO and cofounder, and Allie Eve Knox, team lead.

There are roughly 10,000 creators and 32,000 fans on MintStars, Van Meir said. Smaller creators generate hundreds of dollars per month, and the largest accounts earn $10,000 or more monthly, she said.

OnlyFans siphons a 20 percent commission from earnings, and the top 1 percent of creators bring in about $49,000 or more annually, according to StatisticsOnly.Fans, a company that tracks OnlyFans’ performance.

Goddess Raena, a content creator for MintStars, was fed up with other platforms slashing her earnings. She switched to MintStars in 2024 and is now looking to open a wedding venue using the money she’s made from, for example, posting cheeky pictures of herself in gym leggings.

Raena agreed to share only her screen name, citing potential professional repercussions from her side gig.

Over the past two years, the 29-year-old engineering coordinator has earned at least $400 per month, which has allowed her to afford gas, buy groceries, and pay off student loans — things she couldn’t do previously.

“It’s everything I need as a second job, honestly.” Raena said. “It came down to me needing to make more money, and this was an opportunity.”

But online sex work can be exploitative and high-risk. Creators are susceptible to deepfakes, piracy, privacy concerns, and being removed from platforms including social media and banking institutions.

In recent years, media portrayals of the sex trade have ignited more positive attitudes. Specifically, workers who share stories of high earnings overshadow others who are victimized, exploited, and vulnerable, said Mary Speta, executive director of Amirah Inc., a faith-based nonprofit supporting survivors of sexual exploitation.

Now, a lot of young — but still of-age — people are creating explicit content, said Gail Dines, professor emerita of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College and founder and CEO of Culture Reframed, a nonprofit focusing on pornography’s harms on children and young people.

Many performers who leave the porn industry feel exploited, Dines said. “It’s like any industry, a few do really well, and the rest flounder.”

Advocates have urged lawmakers to repeal some Massachusetts laws against sex workers, maintain prohibitions on sex trafficking, and delete records of people who have been charged with prostitution-related offenses. Earlier this year, Massachusetts state lawmakers added a study order to a bill that seeks to “promote the health and safety of people in the sex trade.”

Like many creators looking to earn extra cash, Raena said she will try to grow followers and traffic on the site, steps toward obtaining more equity in the company.

“It builds my confidence for one; it builds my bank account for two,” Raena said. “The power is in the creators’ hands.”

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Redmond Bernhold can be reached at redmond.bernhold@globe.com.