Traditional banks have been reluctant to lend to online content creators, but a growing field of specialist financiers is stepping in to fund the equipment, staff and production costs that creators need once their audiences scale, according to a Financial Times report.

The report centers on Travis Verkaik, a parkour creator who built an audience filming himself jumping between buildings after studying media production in Bristol. “As much as I enjoyed my course, it didn’t teach me how to create capital directly from social media,” he said. His manager, Matt Ramsden of IndyStudios, described the challenge facing early-stage creators: “The problem for early-stage creators like Travis is it’s about staying alive. There is this funding gap for creators.”

While starting out as a creator costs little, since many film with a smartphone and can access platform grants, growth brings new costs. Creators need capital for better audiovisual equipment, studio space, managers and accountants, and mainstream lenders have historically viewed the small scale and slow buildup of creator businesses as too uncertain to underwrite. 

Ben Woods, Head of Creator Economy at Enders Analysis, said that has started to shift: “The financial community has begun to recognise creators as proper businesses.”

How the Lending Works

According to the FT report, specialist lenders can track creator earnings directly, using tools such as YouTube’s AdSense data to verify audience size and ad revenue, then structure financing against a share of future income, collecting gross monthly revenue and remitting net income after fees.

Sekura Asset Management began lending to creators this year and expects to grow the business to $100 million in 2027, according to managing partner Samuel Oiknine. He estimated two-thirds of Sekura’s creator financing goes to YouTube creators, with the remainder split between TikTok, Instagram and Twitch. Sekura targets creators generating at least $1 million in annual revenue; Oiknine previously capped individual deals at $2 million but said a new fund with Swiss fintech Copyright Capital will allow larger amounts for qualifying creators.

Viewture, backed by the Agnelli family’s Lingotto Investment Management and sports entrepreneur David Blitzer, has lent between $12,000 and more than $10 million to roughly 50 creators, including The Sidemen, requiring a minimum of $3,000 in monthly earnings. “We can take a view and look at creators with all sorts of experience,” said Jason Kingston-Brown, the firm’s Commercial Executive Director. 

Sound Royalties, a music-industry financier for more than a decade, has also moved into video, lending to creators who have spent at least a year in YouTube’s partner program and earn $3,000 a month or more. “We try to be creative-friendly financing,” said Managing Partner Michael Bizenov.

Bigger Creators Look Like Companies

The capital need intensifies as creators move into longer, more professionally produced videos, a shift the FT ties to YouTube’s expansion onto smart TVs. Some top channels, including MrBeast, The Sidemen and Pop the Balloon, have moved into deals with streaming platforms such as Prime Video and Netflix. “The middle and upper market [creators] are no longer sole traders. They have large teams and also have diversified revenue streams,” said Neil Waller, co-founder of the Whalar Group. “So all of a sudden [they] look like a small- or medium-sized company.”

That scale is also drawing private equity interest in creators’ back catalogs. Woods said some established creators are “starting to burn out and want to exit,” while “private equity wants to collect [rights to] older episodes and syndicate these.”

Verkaik, for his part, said a June video of him chasing cheeses down a hill in Gloucestershire drew 140,000 views, with a shorter cut passing 5 million. He said he hopes to secure investor funding for a parkour channel: “The introduction to all these creator fund schemes has been a huge blessing for people like me. It’s made a dream turn into a reality.”

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