📈60m subs and 17b views
Dude Perfect, a creator group headquartered in Frisco, Texas, and famous for their sports trick shots on YouTube, raised over $100 million from private equity firm Highmount Capital, per Yahoo Finance.
Since starting the YouTube channel 15 years ago, Dude Perfect has amassed 60 million subscribers and 17 billion views. Their main demographic is children and young adolescents (under 15 years old), and about half of their audience is international.
Companies like ESPN, Nike, and Walmart have partnered with Dude Perfect to reach younger audiences, and it seems to be working. Dude Perfect projects $50 million in revenue this year, and they have built a powerful brand that families trust to be suitable for their kids.
The deal is part of a more significant trend of investment firms investing in social media talent to build products for their massive online audiences:
- Kevin Espiritu’s Epic Gardening, an online gardening website and YouTube channel, raised $17.5 million from a private equity group, The Chernin Group
- Jimmy O’Brien’s Jomboy Media, a sports and pop culture website, raised $5 million from the investment firm Connect Ventures
While investor demand to work with large creators is increasing, a more robust ecosystem is developing for smaller players. Spotter and Jellysmack offer creators upfront cash for the rights to YouTube back catalogs. Creative Juice provides funding in exchange for a cut of the creator’s revenue over a certain period – typically between six months to three years.
More creators are taking the leap and working full-time on content than ever before, and we expect that number to continue increasing as investors break out the checkbook.
