I spent 100 hours trapped inside fundraising meetings

YouTube behemoth MrBeast is on a mission to raise a dollar for every one of his subscribers hundreds of millions of dollars in a deal that would value his company, MrBeast LLC, at ~$5 billion, per a new Bloomberg report.

The YouTube star, real name Jimmy Donaldson, is the site’s most popular creator with 368+ million subscribers. He’s known for videos featuring extravagant contests for prizes like briefcases full of money, free shopping trips worth tens of thousands of dollars, and college scholarships.

The money boomerang

While Donaldson has built a career on giving away money, some of it has managed to come back to him. In 2022, he revealed he turned down a $1 billion offer to take over his companies and the MrBeast content empire, which included a piddly ~115 million subscribers on his main channel at the time.

Why raise money now? Donaldson is reportedly planning to use the funds to expand his packaged goods and media businesses. 

• MrBeast LLC owns part or all of various ventures, including Feastables, a brand of chocolate bars, and Lunchly, a lunch kit marketed as a healthier alternative to Lunchables.
• The company is reportedly profitable, bringing in $400+ million in sales last year, per sources.

🛒📲 Zoom out: Influencer-centric brands are becoming all the rage. Other notable examples include Kim Kardashian’s Skims ($4B+ valuation), Prime by Logan Paul x KSI ($3.2B), and W by Jake Paul (~$150M+).