Tech
YouTubers aren’t relying on ad revenue anymore — here’s how some are diversifying
YouTube has become the biggest platform out there, offering tons of opportunities for creators to earn a living. Back in June, the company reported that its creative ecosystem added over $55 billion to the U.S. GDP and created more than 490,000 full-time jobs.
However, many YouTubers have reduced their reliance on ad revenue and brand deals. There are several reasons for this shift. First, ad revenue can be unpredictable. With YouTube continually updating its policies, some creators find it challenging to secure ads for their videos, which can negatively impact their earnings. They’ve also realized that income from these streams can vanish unexpectedly.
Recognizing the volatility of platform-dependent revenue, many YouTubers are no longer just creators. They’re vertically integrated media companies with parallel businesses, including product lines, brick-and-mortar ventures, and consumer brands that can outlast algorithm changes and policy shifts.
In some cases, these side businesses are growing faster and more sustainably than their YouTube channels.
MrBeast
Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, who has 442 million subscribers, isn’t just one of the platform’s biggest creators — he’s its most aggressive entrepreneur.
In November 2025, for example, The Times reported that the YouTuber is set to open a theme park in Saudi Arabia, with rides inspired by his video content. Among other features, there will supposedly be a game where six players stand on trap doors and must press a button when it lights up or fall down.
MrBeast is also venturing into telecommunications. He plans to establish a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which could involve partnering with one of the major operators, such as AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon.
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Additionally, the YouTuber was spotted filing a trademark application for a mobile app that offers banking, financial advisory, and crypto exchange services. In February 2026, MrBeast announced the acquisition of Step, the banking app targeting Gen Z users.
But there’s so much more. What started with a merchandise store in 2018 — ShopMrBeast — has exploded into a broad business portfolio, including his now three-year-old snack brand, Feastables.
Feastables’ initial product was the “MrBeast Bar,” a chocolate bar that generated over $10 million in sales within its first 72 hours, selling over 1 million bars at launch. As of today, Feastables is more profitable than his YouTube content and even his “Beast Games” competition series on Prime Video. In 2024, Feastables generated roughly $250 million in revenue and over $20 million in profit, while his media business lost approximately $80 million.
Other ventures include his packaged food brand Lunchly (co-founded with YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI), the toy line MrBeast Lab, MrBeast Burger, and the analytics platform Viewstats. He even attempted to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok by joining the American Investor Consortium, a group of investors led by Employer.com founder Jesse Tinsley.
Emma Chamberlain
Emma Chamberlain, who rose to fame as a teen vlogger in 2016, now has over 12 million subscribers and has found success in the beverage industry.
She launched her coffee brand, Chamberlain Coffee, in 2019, which offers a variety of products, including cold brew, coffee pods, ground and whole bean options, as well as tea and matcha. Notably, other YouTubers have followed suit, such as Jacksepticeye with his Top of the Mornin’ Coffee brand and Philip DeFranco with Wake & Make Coffee.
In 2023, Chamberlain Coffee had a significant year, introducing ready-to-drink canned lattes and reaching approximately $20 million in revenue, according to Forbes. The brand recently experienced even more substantial growth, opening its first physical location in January. Previously, it had only an online and retail presence at places like Target, Sprouts, and Walmart.
Although Chamberlain Coffee faced some challenges in 2024 due to supplier issues, it’s expected to rebound, with projected revenue growth of over 50% by 2025, reaching more than $33 million, according to Business Insider. The brand is also aiming for profitability by 2026.
Logan Paul
Logan Paul (23.6 million subscribers) is now known for his wrestling career but was earlier known for numerous controversies, like an infamous 2017 video and an allegedly scammy NFT project, CryptoZoo.
He also gained attention through his energy drink brand, Prime, which achieved rapid viral success in 2022. The brand, co-founded by YouTuber KSI, surpassed $1.2 billion in sales in 2023, a figure far exceeding what most content creators earn from views, ads, and brand deals. However, it has since faced declining sales, regulatory scrutiny for its high caffeine content, and lawsuits from business partners. Sales have particularly cooled in the U.K., where revenue dropped by about 70% from 2023 to 2024.
Another venture of his, Maverick Apparel, made between $30 million and $40 million in 2020.
His brother, Jake Paul, is also involved in various ventures, including co-founding the Anti Fund, which has touted past investments in OpenAI, Anduril, Ramp, and Cognition, among others. The younger Paul also owns a grooming line, called W, and a mobile betting platform called Betr.
Ryan’s World
Ryan’s World, hosted by 13-year-old Ryan Kaji, is another prominent YouTuber with a staggering following. Ryan rose to fame through his toy reviews and unboxing videos, which have captivated nearly 40 million young viewers.
In addition to his YouTube success, Kaji has expanded his brand through a line of toys and apparel that are sold in major retail chains and that reportedly generated over $250 million in revenue in 2020. Kaji and his family have since diversified their ventures, including launching a TV show and an app that provides educational content tailored for children.
Rosanna Pansino
Rosanna Pansino is a popular baker on YouTube known for her baking tutorials and themed treats. With 14.8 million subscribers, she gained fame for her recipes inspired by pop culture, gaming, and movies.
Beyond YouTube, Pansino has released several cookbooks that have been well-received, expanding her Nerdy Nummies brand. She also sells baking tools at several retailers, such as Amazon.
Other YouTubers have ventured into cookware and food products as additional revenue streams. Notable examples include cook and author Andrew Rea, known by the pseudonym Babish, who launched his Babish Cookware brand in 2021, as well as comedy duo Rhett & Link, who sell MishMash Cereal.
Michelle Phan
Michelle Phan gained fame in 2007 with her makeup tutorials, becoming one of the first beauty influencers to effectively monetize her content. In addition to her successful YouTube career, she co-founded the beauty subscription service Ipsy, which has become highly popular. Phan also has her own makeup line, EM Cosmetics.
Huda Kattan
Huda Kattan founded the globally recognized beauty brand Huda Beauty in 2013. She sold a minority stake to private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners in 2017 but bought it back in June after investor pressure to bring in senior leadership clashed with her vision for the fast-moving brand, which reportedly brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in sales each year.
Many influencers have created their own makeup brands. Other well-known makeup brands launched by YouTube influencers include Jeffree Star Cosmetics and Tati Beauty.
Tech
Primary Ventures raises healthy $625M Fund V to focus on seed investing
Primary Ventures has closed a $625 million Fund V focused on seed investing nationwide, which is a sizable fund for a firm that focuses solely on early-stage investing. It perhaps showcases how the size of early-stage rounds has dramatically increased in the age of AI.
Ben Sun, a co-founder and general partner at Primary Ventures, told TechCrunch the average check size for this fund will range from $5 million to $10 million, and he hopes the firm will invest in 40 to 50 companies over the course of three years. He said the fund will also go as early as pre-seed.
The fund will also continue to spread its investments nationwide. Primary is one of New York’s most well-known venture firms, and at one point, most of its investments were focused in the Big Apple. Sun said the location thesis has changed.
The firm, which overall focuses on early-stage investing, has now done deals in Chicago, Seattle, Virginia, and D.C. “The talent, the founder, and the startups are happening everywhere,” he said. “The potential outcomes are so much bigger than they’ve ever been.”
He sees seed investing as headed toward its own asset class, especially as the quality of talent and their startups continue to rise, paired with tech’s current transformation. Firms are competing, after all, to find the hottest deals. “I think [a fund of this size] allows you to go in and compete and bring more resources to the table to work with the best founders and opportunities.”
Sequoia also recently raised a $200 million seed fund, as did Uncork Capital, which announced a $225 million seed fund earlier last year.
Though Primary calls itself a generalist, Sun said the firm has sector specialists, each with their own focus. He likes consumer, but also has investors focused on vertical AI, fintech, healthcare, enterprise, cybersecurity, and infrastructure. “We pretty much cover probably 80% or 90% of the seed sector activities out there.”
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Fund V has already invested in three companies. Primary previously raised $60 million in Fund I when it launched in 2015, followed by $100 million in Fund II and $150 million in Fund III.
It raised a $275 million fund and an additional $163 million for an opportunity fund. Some of its investments include the AI chip company Etched, the risk management platform Alloy, the women’s networking hub Chief, and the AI marketplace Dandelion Health. It has $1.65 billion in assets under management.
Tech
Spotify hits a record 751M monthly users thanks to Wrapped, new free features
Swedish music streaming giant Spotify saw its user numbers peak last quarter, driven by its year-end “Wrapped” campaign, which rounds up stats and listening highlights for users and new features on its free tier.
The company said it saw a record 38 million new users in the fourth quarter, taking its total to 751 million monthly active users, up 11% from a year earlier. Paying subscribers increased by 10% to 290 million in the quarter.
Spotify said the “Wrapped” campaign resulted in more than 300 million engaged users and 630 million shares on social media in 56 languages.
Revenue came in at €4.53 billion ($5.39 billion), about 7% more than a year earlier, thanks to an 8% increase in subscription revenue. However, the company’s ad-supported business saw revenue dip by 4% to €518 million ($616.6 million). Gross margin, an important metric investors watch for indications of improvements to Spotify’s profitability, improved by 83 basis points to a record high of 33.1% as the company sold more ads for podcasts and music.
The solid performance comes as Spotify’s new co-CEOs Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström take the reins from co-founder Daniel Ek, and they will now oversee a business that has far outgrown what it initially set out to do.
After launching as a music-streaming pure-play, Spotify has expanded its remit to include podcasts, audiobooks, and even physical bookstores. It’s launched music videos within the app as well as video podcasts and has doubled down on its retention strategy by adding social features like group chats and letting users share what they’re listening to. You can even use Spotify to book tickets to concerts, or explore the story behind songs.
The company has also added AI features like an AI DJ and AI-generated playlists, and now lets users exclude tracks from being recommended to help them better tailor what they listen to.
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Profitability has been a big focus for Spotify in recent years, and the company has tried to achieve that by increasing subscription prices in the U.S. and Europe. It’s also added new features to its free, ad-supported tier to attract more people away from rivals like YouTube Music and Amazon Music, letting users search for and choose songs they want to listen to.
The company expects to reach 759 million users and 293 million paying subscribers in the current quarter.
Tech
Former GitHub CEO raises record $60M dev tool seed round at $300M valuation
Former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke has raised the largest-ever seed round for a dev tool startup, according to its lead backer, Felicis. The startup, Entire, has raised $60 million at a $300 million valuation.
Entire offers an open source tool to help developers better manage code written by AI agents.
Entire’s tech has three components. One is a Git-compatible database to unify the AI-produced code. Git is a distributed version control system popular with enterprises and used by open source sites like GitHub and GitLab.
Another component is what it calls “a universal semantic reasoning layer” intended to allow multiple AI agents to work together. The final piece is an AI-native user interface designed with agent-to-human collaboration in mind.
The first product Entire is releasing is an open source tool it calls Checkpoints that automatically pairs every bit of software the agent submits for use in a software project with the context that created it, including prompts and transcripts. The idea is to allow the human developer to review, search, and perhaps even learn from why the AI did what it did.
Entire hopes to help developers better deal with the large volumes of software created by AI coding agents. Popular open source projects are particularly overwhelmed these days with suggested code contributions that may or may not be AI slop — meaning poorly designed and possibly unusable code.
Dohmke explains in the press release: “We are living through an agent boom, and now massive volumes of code are being generated faster than any human could reasonably understand. The truth is, our manual system of software production — from issues, to git repositories, to pull requests, to deployment — was never designed for the era of AI in the first place.”
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Dohmke was CEO of Microsoft’s GitHub for four years, leaving in August 2025 to found a startup, he said in a post on X at the time. During his time there, he oversaw the rise of the popular coding agent GitHub Copilot.
Other investors in the seed round include Madrona, M12, Basis Set, Harry Stebbings, Jerry Yang, and Datadog founder and CEO Olivier Pomel.
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