Cantina, Fox & Wheelhouse Go Shopping

The Digital Dealflow

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Quartermast Advisors
June 04, 2026

Good Morning,

We’re back to busy M&A and market updates. Sean Parker's Cantina Labs acquired creator-equity firm Goldenset Collective. Together, they plan to build the personality layer of the internet. On the podcast distribution side, Fox Creator Studios signed a 50/50 multi-project deal with Tom Segura's YMH Studios (25 shows, 2M followers, 500M annual impressions), with Fox bringing ad sales to YMH's audio inventory. Meanwhile, Patreon locked in a three-year exclusive with Recho Omondi's The Cutting Room Floor, already in Patreon's top 1% of shows.

In creator-Hollywood roll-ups, Wheelhouse acquired Anomaly Entertainment, the unscripted shop behind 40 Shark Week shows and collaborations with Mark Rober and Dude Perfect. Spotter funded the Try Guys' Killer Dinner murder-mystery series, and Amazon MGM launched a GenAI Creators' Fund with AI tooling and capital for film and digital creators (size undisclosed).

On the brand side, Sprinklr acquired ViralMoment, a video-AI shop that reads social video frame-by-frame rather than transcripts. Spy Ninjas Entertainment (the rebrand of Chad Wild Clay and Vy Qwaint's Qlay Co.) committed $25M to expand its YouTube pipeline, hire 50, and build a 65,000 sq ft studio.

On the funding side, Phia (Phoebe Gates AI shopping app) added Khloe Kardashian, Alix Earle, Sydney Sweeney, and Eileen Gu to its cap table atop January's $35M Series A.

Three YouTuber-directed films took the weekend box office (Backrooms $118M, Obsession $148M, Iron Lung $52M)- creators came for Hollywood before AI…

Quartermast Creator Economy Index:

Layoff Watch:

  • Snap: Quietly shelved Peter Hamby's flagship Good Luck America with no new episodes since March, signaling a broader pullback from original news programming.

  • Try Guys: Senior video editor YB Chang Biste departed as the creator-led studio reshuffles its production bench.

The Weekly Roundup

  1. Meta's Plus Paywalls: Meta launched Facebook Plus and Instagram Plus at $3.99/mo and WhatsApp Plus at $2.99/mo, teasing a future MetaOne bundle as paid tiers come to the family of apps (Tubefilter).

  2. Episodic Reels: Meta is testing Series, a format for episodic Reels on Instagram and Facebook designed to retain creators leaving short-form for long-form (TechCrunch).

  3. TikTok Shop Goes Continental: TikTok Shop expands to Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Poland on June 15, building on the 100,000+ EU businesses that joined since launch (Scalable).

  4. YouTube Polls Europe: YouTube launched a European Creator Consultation Survey aimed at informing its regulatory and platform-policy posture in the EU (YouTube).

  5. B2B Goes Creator-First: Microsoft and Google are reportedly paying creators $400K-$600K per multi-month engagement, with 75% of B2B companies increasing influencer spend in 2026 (Adage).

  6. Healthcare Creator Maturity: Digiday mapped how healthcare creators are figuring out their role in the creator economy, with brands now structuring compliance-friendly programs around them (Digiday).

  7. Sidemen Without KSI: Hello Partner explored whether the Sidemen, credited with shaping much of the creator-economy playbook, can survive KSI's departure after 13 years (Hello Partner).

  8. CAA Adds Ostrow: CAA's Creators division hired Kendall Ostrow, formerly head of top creators and public figures at YouTube and a 10-year UTA veteran (Hollywood Reporter).

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