It’s still incredibly hard to raise venture capital as the founder of a creator economy startup—unless you’re offering services for independent musicians.

Creator economy startups in the U.S. raised $151.5 million in venture funding in the second quarter of this year so far, down 82% year over year, according to an update from The Information’s Creator Economy Database. Still, funding rose 17% from the first quarter, representing the first quarter-over-quarter growth in U.S. funding since we launched the database in June 2021. The gains stemmed in part from deals for music startups such as Duetti, which buys rights to catalogs and individual tracks from independent musicians.

In addition, The Information is publishing for the first time funding details for 91 creator startups based outside the U.S., in countries from the U.K. to Singapore. In the second quarter, 12 startups outside the U.S. raised a total of $78.2 million.