Solving Creator Chaos: Beluga Labs Automates Bookkeeping and Taxes

The creator economy has evolved from a niche trend into a powerhouse of economic activity. With over $250 billion circulating through platforms like YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Patreon, Substack, and Instagram, millions of individuals have turned content creation into legitimate, lucrative careers. These creators are entrepreneurs in every sense of the word—building audiences, monetizing content, launching products, and managing partnerships.

However, one area where creators consistently face friction is financial management. Despite running what are essentially small businesses, creators often lack access to professional-grade financial infrastructure. They’re forced to rely on disconnected spreadsheets, consumer-grade banking apps, and a cobbled-together mix of accounting hacks to keep their finances in order.

Many find themselves asking:

“How do I handle income from five different platforms?”
“What can I write off on my taxes?”
“How do I form an S-Corp and pay myself a salary?”
“What’s the best way to plan for taxes when my revenue changes every month?”

This is where Beluga Labs comes in. Founded in 2024 and backed by Y Combinator’s Spring 2025 batch, the San Francisco-based startup is developing the financial operating system for content creators. In the same way that Rippling transformed HR and IT ops for startups, Beluga aims to simplify the messy, fragmented world of creator finances, starting with intelligent bookkeeping.

How Does Beluga Labs Redefine Financial Management for Creators?

Beluga Labs' approach starts with a simple insight: creators deserve tools that treat them like businesses.

The platform offers seamless financial integration by allowing users to connect all their financial accounts—from checking to credit to platform payouts. Using advanced AI, the system automatically categorizes transactions, flags potential deductions, and builds a real-time, creator-specific P&L (profit and loss) dashboard.

This system isn’t just bookkeeping—it’s contextual decision-making support. Creators no longer have to wonder whether a business lunch, a second laptop, or a ring light qualifies as a write-off. Beluga explains not only whether it qualifies, but why, complete with references to IRS guidance and personalized categorization.

The user experience is distilled into three core actions:

Connect: Securely link financial accounts and tag them based on business or personal use.
Track: Let AI categorize every transaction and calculate potential deductibility.
Optimize: View business health with clear financial dashboards and prepare for tax season with ease.

In contrast to legacy systems like QuickBooks, Beluga feels less like accounting software and more like a creator-focused command center.

Why Are Creators Uniquely Challenged by Finances?

Creators face a set of financial challenges that differ significantly from traditional freelancers, small businesses, or W2 employees:

Income Volatility: Revenue can vary wildly month to month based on algorithm changes, sponsorships, virality, or seasonality.
Multi-Source Revenue: A creator might earn from five to ten different channels, each with different payout structures, fees, and schedules.
Tax Complexity: Without employer withholding, quarterly taxes become a guessing game, and mistakes can be costly.
Blurred Business Expenses: Many purchases straddle the line between personal and business use, leading to ambiguity in deductions.
Time Drain: Every hour spent on admin is an hour not spent on creating, engaging, or growing.

This complex blend of volatility, multi-platform operations, and minimal financial support creates a perfect storm of administrative burden. For creators, it's not just about saving money—it's about saving time and sanity.

Beluga Labs directly addresses this complexity, offering not only automation but education. By helping creators understand their financial data and tax obligations, it empowers them to make smarter business decisions.

What Does “Rippling for Content Creators” Actually Mean?

The phrase “Rippling for content creators” is more than a catchy tagline—it reflects the team’s broader vision.

Rippling disrupted enterprise HR by creating a unified system where companies could onboard employees, run payroll, manage benefits, and control devices—all from one dashboard. Beluga Labs wants to do the same for creators.

After mastering expense tracking and tax optimization, Beluga will expand to offer:

Automated tax filing and estimated payments
S-Corp formation and compliance management
Integrated payroll for creators and their contractors
Creator-specific benefits like healthcare, retirement planning, and legal services

This transformation will elevate creators from overwhelmed solo operators to confident, streamlined business owners, with enterprise-grade tooling that’s easy to use and tailored to their workflows.

Who Are the Founders of Beluga Labs?

The Beluga Labs founding team blends technical innovation with deep go-to-market insight, bringing a unique advantage to the problem space.

Jack Swisher, Co-Founder and CTO

Jack’s technical background is grounded in AI and automation. He studied Computer Science and Statistics at Harvard, where he wrote his thesis on evaluating generative models. At Bubble, he co-led R&D for a text-to-app generator in a no-code environment. He’s passionate about applying cutting-edge AI to solve practical, messy real-world problems—starting with creator finances.

Fernando Young, Co-Founder and CEO

Fernando studied Sociology at Harvard and sharpened his business acumen with coursework at MIT Sloan. His professional career spans sales leadership roles at HubSpot, Meta, and Dare Drop, where he worked directly on creator monetization strategies. His deep understanding of creator pain points fuels Beluga’s customer-first strategy.

Together, the pair is building a solution that’s both technically robust and market-validated, with strong founder-market fit.

How Is Beluga Labs Already Making a Difference?

Although still early-stage, Beluga Labs is already live and helping creators organize their financial lives. Key features in use today include:

Smart Expense Categorization: AI instantly tags transactions and evaluates deductibility, removing guesswork.
P&L Reporting: Creators get a real-time view of their profits and losses, segmented by category and platform.
Tax Q&A Bot: A friendly assistant answers “Can I deduct this?” with IRS-backed responses.

These features aren’t just helpful—they’re stress-relieving. Creators report feeling more in control of their business, more prepared for tax season, and more empowered to scale without drowning in admin work.

Why Is This Important for the Creator Economy?

The creator economy is no longer a side hustle—it’s a defining force of modern entrepreneurship. But while platforms have matured to help creators distribute and monetize content, infrastructure to support the business behind the content remains underdeveloped.

This infrastructure gap hurts creators in three major ways:

Lost Money: Missed deductions, late tax payments, and inefficient financial structures mean thousands in unnecessary costs.
Lost Time: Manual bookkeeping or confusing tax software takes time away from growth.
Lost Confidence: Financial ambiguity causes anxiety and poor decision-making.

Beluga Labs is working to solve all three.

By automating the business backend, Beluga gives creators the freedom to reinvest their time and capital into their craft, turning passion into scalable, sustainable businesses.

What’s Next for Beluga Labs?

Beluga Labs has a bold product roadmap ahead. The next milestones include:

Quarterly tax automation (filing + payments)
S-Corp setup + optimization workflows
Integrated benefits management for independent creators
Collaborator and contractor payroll tools

Eventually, Beluga Labs wants to be more than just a financial tool—it wants to be the default operating system for the entire creator economy. As new generations of creators emerge, the need for smarter, automated, and accessible financial systems will only grow.

Beluga is building the rails now, so tomorrow’s creators can focus on what they do best.