Background and career
Rachell Marie Hofstetter (born January 8, 1992), also known by her pseudonym Valkyrae, is an American online streamer, YouTuber, and podcaster. She is a co-owner of the gaming organization 100 Thieves and founder and CEO of the media company Hihi Studios.
Hofstetter began streaming on Twitch in 2015. She had her breakthrough by playing the competitive online game Fortnite in 2018 and joined 100 Thieves as their first female content creator. In 2020, she switched streaming platforms by signing an exclusive contract with YouTube. Later that year, she saw significant follower growth and reached her peak viewership when playing the online social deduction game Among Us, which led to her winning the Game Award for "Content Creator of the Year" and the Streamy Award for best live streamer. She was also named "Gaming Creator of the Year" by Adweek in 2021 and was included on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2022.
Rachell Marie Hofstetter was born on January 8, 1992 to Marie Loyao and Richard Hofstetter. and grew up in Moses Lake, Washington. She is of Filipino and German descent and has three brothers and one younger sister. She cites her mother as the reason she became interested in video games, who encouraged her to pursue it as a hobby from a young age. She attended community college and worked a job at GameStop to support herself, later graduating with an associate degree in arts and science. She has worked various jobs including as a bank teller, waitress, babysitter, car wash employee, and an arcade attendant.
While working at GameStop, Hofstetter began sharing her gaming hobby on Instagram, gaining a following. After being encouraged by her followers, she started live streaming on Twitch in 2015. She later began uploading her gaming content to YouTube and had her breakthrough by playing the competitive online game Fortnite in 2018. That October, she became the first female content creator for the gaming organization 100 Thieves. In May 2019, she was nominated for the Gaming award at the 11th Shorty Awards.
On January 13, 2020, Hofstetter left Twitch for an exclusive streaming contract on YouTube. In her first three months on YouTube, she averaged around 1,500 concurrent viewers. Her stream then experienced significant growth and, in late 2020, regularly peaked at concurrent viewer counts exceeding 100,000. This was driven by her playing the online multiplayer social deduction game Among Us and collaborating with popular streamers like Disguised Toast, Sykkuno, Pokimane, PewDiePie, and MoistCr1tikal, in addition to public figures like politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, musician Lil Nas X, and television personality Jimmy Fallon. Hofstetter became the fastest-growing female streamer of 2020 and surpassed Pokimane as the year's most-viewed female streamer. In December 2020, she won Content Creator of the Year award at the 2020 Game Awards.
How Valkyrae makes money
As co-owners, they received equity in the company, which Forbes valued at $190 million at the time. The event raised over $25,000 for Feeding America. The event raised over $10 million in donations.
