The Creator Economy recorded 70 M&A transactions in the first half of 2026, up 23% year over year and the strongest first half tracked to date, according to a new report from Quartermast Advisors. With 87 acquisitions completed in all of 2025, the market is already positioned to surpass last year’s total, and Quartermast projects more than 100 deals will close by year-end.
Media acquisitions accounted for 27.1% of H1 transaction volume, the largest share of any category, and the first time media has led the market. Software followed at 24.3%, agencies at 21.4%, talent management at 14.3%, with the remainder split between other categories (8.6%) and commerce (4.3%). Quartermast frames the spread across four distinct categories as evidence of broad-based buyer conviction rather than a single trend-driven surge.
The Largest Transactions
Software companies produced the two biggest deals of the half:
eBay acquired Gen Z resale platform Depop from Etsy for approximately $1.2 billion in cash;
Netflix acquired film production AI tooling company InterPositive for $587 million;
Accenture Song’s acquisition of creator and social agency Whalar came in at an estimated $500 million;
James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems acquired Vox Media for $300 million;
Byron Allen’s Allen Family Digital acquired a 52% stake in BuzzFeed at a $231 million valuation, with Allen becoming Chairman and CEO and founder Jonah Peretti moving into a role leading BuzzFeed AI.
Quartermast excluded a reported $975 million transaction involving Khaby Lame’s e-commerce business, Step Distinctive, from its rankings, noting the deal appears structured as a reverse merger for public market access rather than a traditional acquisition.
Valuation Multiples Vary by Sector
Quartermast’s valuation data shows most Creator Economy companies trading between 5x and 9x EBITDA, though the range shifts by category.
Agencies span 3.5x to 10.1x EBITDA depending on recurring revenue share, margins, and growth rate, with premium assets carrying 70%-plus recurring revenue and 40%-80%-plus year-over-year growth. Media properties range from 2.0x to 10.0x EBITDA, with premium valuations tied to owned audiences, four or more revenue streams, and monetization density above $40 RPM. Software companies are priced on ARR multiples of 2.0x to 12.0x, driven by net revenue retention and gross margin. Talent management firms trade between 3.0x and 9.0x EBITDA, with concentration risk in a single top creator acting as the primary discount factor.
Deal Activity Concentrates in the U.S. and UK
The U.S. accounted for 59% of all transactions in the report’s executive summary, while North America overall anchored 64.3% of H1 deal volume. Within the U.S., California drove 21 acquisitions, more than every other state combined. Cross-border activity ticked up to 31.4% of H1 transactions, versus 27.2% in 2025, following two years of pullback. Europe was the second-most active region, with the UK responsible for 13 of the continent’s 19 acquisitions.
Buyers Favor Emerging and Growth-Stage Targets
Emerging and growth-stage companies made up the large majority of acquisition targets, with 24 and 30 deals respectively, compared with eight each for scaled and legacy companies. Quartermast attributes the skew to buyers consolidating talent, expanding distribution, and building platform capabilities ahead of peak scale rather than acquiring mature, established assets.
Non-Endemic Buyers Widen the Field
Quartermast highlighted a wave of buyers from outside the Creator Economy entering the space in H1, including HubSpot, OpenAI, eBay, and Cloudflare, alongside Netflix’s InterPositive deal. OpenAI’s acquisition of tech and business media network TBPN, estimated at more than $100 million, and HubSpot’s acquisitions of Futurepedia ($27.5 million) and Starter Story ($8.3 million) were cited as examples of the trend.
Founder James Creech characterized the shift as a sign of market maturity rather than speculation. “Capital is flowing toward businesses with defensible moats, healthy margins, and meaningful scale,” Creech said. “It means buyers are underwriting the Creator Economy the way they’d underwrite any other sector: on fundamentals, not narrative.”
Image source: Quartermast Advisors The full report is available here
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
The Creator Economy recorded 70 M&A transactions in the first half of 2026, up 23% year over year and the strongest first half tracked to date, according to a new report from Quartermast Advisors. With 87 acquisitions completed in all of 2025, the market is already positioned to surpass last year’s total, and Quartermast projects more than 100 deals will close by year-end.
Media acquisitions accounted for 27.1% of H1 transaction volume, the largest share of any category, and the first time media has led the market. Software followed at 24.3%, agencies at 21.4%, talent management at 14.3%, with the remainder split between other categories (8.6%) and commerce (4.3%). Quartermast frames the spread across four distinct categories as evidence of broad-based buyer conviction rather than a single trend-driven surge.
The Largest Transactions
Software companies produced the two biggest deals of the half:
Quartermast excluded a reported $975 million transaction involving Khaby Lame’s e-commerce business, Step Distinctive, from its rankings, noting the deal appears structured as a reverse merger for public market access rather than a traditional acquisition.
Valuation Multiples Vary by Sector
Quartermast’s valuation data shows most Creator Economy companies trading between 5x and 9x EBITDA, though the range shifts by category.
Agencies span 3.5x to 10.1x EBITDA depending on recurring revenue share, margins, and growth rate, with premium assets carrying 70%-plus recurring revenue and 40%-80%-plus year-over-year growth. Media properties range from 2.0x to 10.0x EBITDA, with premium valuations tied to owned audiences, four or more revenue streams, and monetization density above $40 RPM. Software companies are priced on ARR multiples of 2.0x to 12.0x, driven by net revenue retention and gross margin. Talent management firms trade between 3.0x and 9.0x EBITDA, with concentration risk in a single top creator acting as the primary discount factor.
Deal Activity Concentrates in the U.S. and UK
The U.S. accounted for 59% of all transactions in the report’s executive summary, while North America overall anchored 64.3% of H1 deal volume. Within the U.S., California drove 21 acquisitions, more than every other state combined. Cross-border activity ticked up to 31.4% of H1 transactions, versus 27.2% in 2025, following two years of pullback. Europe was the second-most active region, with the UK responsible for 13 of the continent’s 19 acquisitions.
Buyers Favor Emerging and Growth-Stage Targets
Emerging and growth-stage companies made up the large majority of acquisition targets, with 24 and 30 deals respectively, compared with eight each for scaled and legacy companies. Quartermast attributes the skew to buyers consolidating talent, expanding distribution, and building platform capabilities ahead of peak scale rather than acquiring mature, established assets.
Non-Endemic Buyers Widen the Field
Quartermast highlighted a wave of buyers from outside the Creator Economy entering the space in H1, including HubSpot, OpenAI, eBay, and Cloudflare, alongside Netflix’s InterPositive deal. OpenAI’s acquisition of tech and business media network TBPN, estimated at more than $100 million, and HubSpot’s acquisitions of Futurepedia ($27.5 million) and Starter Story ($8.3 million) were cited as examples of the trend.
Founder James Creech characterized the shift as a sign of market maturity rather than speculation. “Capital is flowing toward businesses with defensible moats, healthy margins, and meaningful scale,” Creech said. “It means buyers are underwriting the Creator Economy the way they’d underwrite any other sector: on fundamentals, not narrative.”
Image source: Quartermast Advisors
The full report is available here
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