Podcast star Steven Bartlett is joining with Authentic Brands Group to invest up to $400 million to help other creators grow their businesses.
The host of “The Diary of A CEO” podcast — through his holding company, Steven.com — on Monday unveiled OBSN. The venture will provide creators with capital, infrastructure, and expertise.
OBSN also includes a creator-economy media platform, which Bartlett’s company will run. It features news, analysis, and live experiences. Authentic, meanwhile, will handle the brand-building, product, licensing, strategic partnerships, and global distribution sides of the operation.
The pitch is that the new venture will combine Bartlett’s experience building creator-led media with Authentic’s history of managing brands and intellectual property. Authentic invests in IP and cultural assets. Its portfolio includes more than 50 brands and figures, including Reebok, Shaquille O’Neal, Sports Illustrated, and Elvis Presley.
Bartlett said the venture was an attempt to answer what he called a problem of “fragmentation vultures,” partners who help creators with different aspects of their businesses but who have misaligned interests.
“Is it possible to have a truly integrated partner?” he said onstage, announcing the initiative. “We believe there is.”
Bartlett said offstage that he’d look for creators who operate in evergreen categories and score highly on traits like resilience, ambition, and the ability to respond to setbacks.
“I almost see creators as founders now, because they’re operating in these multi-hyphenated businesses,” he said.
Jamie Salter, executive chairman of Authentic, said his company’s value to creators lies in playing more than just an agent role.
“Can we take this creator economy and do what we’ve done with David Beckham or Marilyn Monroe or Shaquille O’Neal and take your brand across all these different pillars?” Salter said. “We are a one-stop shop.”
The number of creators the money will be spread across hasn’t yet been determined, and the companies didn’t commit to a detailed timeframe beyond saying funds would be deployed “over the coming years.”
Bartlett is best known for his 9-year-old podcast “The Diary of a CEO,” which has amassed about 20 million subscribers on YouTube, approaching Joe Rogan, and has become the No. 1 business podcast on Spotify in the US.
It’s not the first time Bartlett has tried to leverage his own social media success to build other creators’ businesses.
With one of his companies, FlightStory, he’s been signing and nurturing other talent. He’s sought to apply his own playbook to their businesses, including extensive pre-show research and using social clipping to grow their footprints. His first big test case is “Hot Smart Rich” host Maggie Sellers Reum, whom he recently invested seven figures in through FlightStory.
His company has a speakers division, called FlightSpeakers, and a unit that helps other creators distribute on social media. FlightStory is also exploring a paid membership program to tap into diehard fans.
Bartlett recently raised an eight-figure investment round to expand the company, which has about 150 employees and took in around $47 million in revenue last year.
