We have been mapping over 300 creator-led ventures to understand how creators are capitalising on the communities they have built over the years. Here is a recap of what is happening across the most active sectors.

The most natural and prolific ground for creator-led ventures. With one in three adults discovering products via social media, and influencer marketing having been built precisely to sell products to consumers, the shift from renting attention to brands to owning distribution was a logical one. Beauty in particular has been the most fertile category (which we wrote a whole report on), with Fenty Beauty, Rare Beauty, Kylie Cosmetics, Rhode, and many more surpassing $100M in annual revenue and achieving billion-dollar valuations.

Rhode Founded in 2022 by Hailey Bieber

Rhode launched with ten SKUs, clean formulations, and branding that felt like a natural extension of everything Bieber had built her identity around. It quickly became the physical embodiment of the clean girl aesthetic that dominated culture from 2022 onwards. Limited drops, curated pop-ups, and Bieber’s relevance and reach drove $212M in DTC sales in 2025 alone, prompting e.l.f. Beauty to acquire the brand in a deal valued at up to $1B and a Sephora rollout shortly following.

Beverages were the second major CPG category to experience the rise of creator brands. The sector has always been sensitive to marketing; brand perception drives repeat purchases, and the emergence of better-for-you products gave creators a strategic entry point. From Prime to Poppi to Chamberlain Coffee, down to one of the most successful cases of all: Alani Nu.

Alani Nu Founded in 2018 by Katy Hearn

Alani Nu entered the energy drink market when consumers were actively seeking an alternative to the male-oriented products that had long dominated the category. Hearn, already an established fitness creator, built a better-for-you beverage brand aimed at Gen Z and millennial women. With Congo Brands, the same operator behind Prime Hydration, providing the infrastructure to scale it, the brand grew to $595M in net sales by 2024. Celsius acquired Alani Nu at a $1.8B valuation in 2025, and what followed was one of the most compelling strategic acquisitions in the space, with the brand driving over $1B in sales for Celsius in FY2025 (almost 2x in the same year of the acquisition!).

Breaking down creator consumer ventures

The consumer sector is the most intuitive entry point for creators, with DTC models lowering barriers to entry, modest capital requirements, and direct customer feedback de-risking the early stages. Scaling into retail distribution, however, demands working capital and operational expertise that most creators do not have alone, which is why the strongest brands tend to pair creator momentum with experienced operators behind them. The brands that get this right become highly attractive to strategic acquirers, as both Rhode and Alani Nu demonstrate, and building that kind of structure from the start is precisely what Vivaio Ventures was designed to help creators do.

A significant shift is underway in cinema, as a new generation of creator-directors has begun to bypass traditional studios.

Two Sleepy People Released 2025, directed by Baron Ryan, supported by Creator Camp

TikToker Baron Ryan made Two Sleepy People independently, supported by Creator Camp, a company founded in 2021 by creators Max Reisinger, Simon Kim, and Chris Duncan to help internet-native filmmakers bridge the gap between online content and theatrical releases. Produced in 100 days on a $100K budget, the film generated over $10K per screen during its opening run, a strong metric for independent production standard.

Iron Lung Released 2026, Mark Fischbach (Markiplier)

With over 37M YouTube subscribers, Markiplier had leverage when traditional studios came calling. Fischbach self-wrote and self-directed Iron Lung, a horror film based on the 2022 video game of the same name, declining offers that required ceding creative control. He partnered with talent firm Night for production and Centurion Film Service for distribution across 4,000 theaters. Produced on a $3M budget, the film surpassed $50M in revenue within three weeks of release.

Breaking Down Media

The creator-to-cinema model is still early, but the initial signals are compelling. A pre-existing audience reduces marketing risk and allows creators to retain their IP, though execution remains the core challenge; filmmaking demands production infrastructure and distribution relationships that most creators do not have natively, which is exactly the gap companies like Creator Camp were built to fill. Capital requirements vary considerably and might remain the biggest barriers to overcome but the unit economics seen so far suggest the ceiling is significantly higher than the industry expected.

Influencer-led food ventures are one of the most opportunistic segments in the creator economy when executed well, and one of the most unforgiving when they are not.

Meat Crew Founded in 2023 by Massimo Novati (Mocho)

Meat Crew is an American-style smash burger chain founded by Italian YouTuber Mocho, who built a 290K-strong community around american food. Food trucks and pop-ups tested the concept before any permanent location opened. The chain has since expanded to four locations across Italy, generating €3.3M in revenue in 2024, representing 96% year-on-year growth, with projections of €5.5M by 2026.

Italy has proven a very active market for creator-led food retail ventures, with some other notable cases being Con Mollica o Senza (founded in 2023, grew from a single Neapolitan sandwich shop to four locations generating €2.2M in revenue in 2024) and All'Antico Vinaio that now operates across 50+ locations in five countries, €80M in revenue in 2025.

In Germany, a new player worth looking at was launched in 2022 and has raised €34M to date.

Lanch Founded in 2022

Lanch is a German operator that helps creators launch and scale food brands without the capital burden of physical restaurants, using ghost kitchens to fulfil orders through delivery platforms. Three brands have emerged from this model: Loco Chicken, Happy Slice Pizza, and Happy Chips, all of which have extended into CPG products now stocked in over 10,000 German supermarkets, with some also expanding into physical franchise locations.

Breaking down Food & Retail

Costs are significant from day one, covering equipment, inventory, staffing, and lease commitments before a single unit of revenue is proven, making the pop-up-before-permanent approach sound financial discipline as much as smart branding. Ghost kitchen models like Lanch offer a faster, cheaper path to scale, though physical presence builds brand permanence that delivery alone rarely achieves. Exit opportunities include acquisition by larger food groups or growth opportunities through franchising.

Technology has attracted a smaller but growing number of creators, mostly focused on business, entrepreneurship, and innovation. The strongest cases bring more than distribution and credibility; they bring deep domain expertise that traditional founders often lack.

Retrograde Founded in 2024 by Grace Beverley, Jake Browne, and Gary Meehan

Retrograde is a great example as it innovates the specific sector in which creators operate. An AI-powered agent built to disrupt traditional talent management, giving every creator access to the kind of end-to-end brand deal management that has historically been reserved for those with expensive, established representation. Grace Beverley brings the creator credibility and industry insight; co-founders Browne and Meehan bring the operational expertise, having previously founded and sold Peblo, a creator invoicing platform, and WhereToAI respectively. In late 2024, Retrograde secured ~$2M in pre-seed funding led by Elkstone, with participation from Jack Pierse and several business angels, ready for U.S. expansion.

thirdweb Founded in 2021 by Steven Bartlett and co-founders

thirdweb provides the development tools that allow engineers and companies to build products on blockchain technology, covering smart contract deployment, wallet integration, and on-chain infrastructure. It sits beneath the consumer-facing applications most people associate with Web3, powering the technical layer those products are built on. The platform raised a $5M seed round backed by Gary Vaynerchuk and Mark Cuban, followed by a $24M Series A at a $160M valuation with investors including Coinbase Ventures, Shopify, Polygon, and Haun Ventures.

Breaking down Technology

Technology represents the highest-ceiling, highest-complexity segment for creator-led ventures, with stronger margins and larger exit multiples than most other categories. Building genuine technology products requires technical co-founders and product discipline that most creators do not typically have, making team assembly the variable that most often determines success or failure. Capital requirements vary considerably, but investor appetite for creator-backed technology companies with credible founding teams is demonstrably strong.

Digital products represent one of the most capital-efficient paths available to creators.

Sweat Founded in 2015 by Kayla Itsines and Tobi Pearce

Sweat turned Kayla Itsines' substantial fitness following into a structured, scalable business, delivering personalised fitness programs to a global community of women at a fraction of the cost of a gym or personal trainer. The subscription model generated approximately $100M in revenue from 450K paid subscribers by 2021, attracting an acquisition by iFIT for around $150M that same year.

Breaking down Apps

No physical infrastructure, no inventory, no premises to lease, and margins that most other categories cannot match once the product is built. Subscription revenue is predictable, and distribution costs are negligible when the founder already has an audience, making the path to profitability comparatively fast. The primary challenge is retention; maintaining relevance over the years requires continued investment in features and community that founders consistently underestimate. For creators looking to build without starting from scratch, platforms like Kajabi, which has raised over $550M and whose users have collectively generated over $10B in sales, provide ready-made infrastructure to launch and scale a digital subscription business from day one.

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