The Blogger Agent Goes West & Giggly's $160M

The Digital Dealflow

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Quartermast Advisors
September 24, 2026

Good Morning,

The Only Agency, the LA firm behind stylist Law Roach, acquired London creator agency The Blogger Agent and its roster of more than 100M combined followers, with founder Claudia Bish leading expansion into the US and Middle East.

TikTok Shop agencies changed hands twice in one day. Common Thread Collective acquired TBAR Partners, the 15-month-old agency managing more than $5M in monthly GMV for brands including Vita Coco and HexClad. Meanwhile, Power Digital picked up TikTok Shop agency uptickk alongside Amazon agency pirawna, which manages over $1B in annual Amazon revenue. SoCom also rolled its social commerce conference, news, and podcast properties into a single platform.

SiriusXM won the bidding war for Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo's Giggly Squad, reportedly paying $160M over four years for exclusive global ad sales and a new slate of shows, pulling the podcast from Acast.

In Italy, Winx Club producer Rainbow took a majority stake in 247 Production, the branded-content studio co-founded by comedy duo PanPers, which delivered 3,500-plus pieces of content last year. Journalist-led studio Brazen also raised $2.5M from Lotus Singapore Group as part of its seed round.

On the pre-M&A radar, System1 rejected a fourth hostile offer from Social Chain owner Brave Bison, worth about £47.5M, with holders of 23% of its shares refusing to sell.

The White House launched a 24/7 YouTube channel this week- someone get them a TikTok Shop agency, apparently those are selling.

Quartermast heads to VidSummit:

Layoff Watch:

  • Reach: Cutting about 220 editorial roles and creating 60, a net loss of roughly 160, as it closes Aberdeen Live, Kent Live, and Galway Beo and makes active engaged time its key metric.

  • BBC Sport: Cutting 41 roles and creating 5, a net loss of 36, including the News channel's lunchtime and overnight sports bulletins, as part of the BBC's £500M savings plan.

  • Xbox: Cutting 268 more jobs across Halo Studios and central teams, with Activision taking over the next Halo game, in a reset Xbox says is now about three-quarters complete.

The Weekly Roundup:

  1. YouTube Goes After the Brief: At Made on YouTube, the platform launched Affiliate Campaigns with exclusive brand commission rates and Ask Studio, an AI agent that helps creators answer brand briefs, and said YouTube Shopping sales are up 13x in two years (TechCrunch).

  2. Whatnot Cuts Its Take Rate: Whatnot moved to tiered seller commissions that fall as low as 3% for its biggest sellers, a month after raising a $545M Series G (Inc.).

  3. Spotify Pays Podcasters in 35 More Markets: Spotify's Partner Program is expanding to more than 35 new markets including Brazil, Mexico, Italy, and Spain, its largest expansion yet (TechCrunch).

  4. Disney Shops for Creators: Disney signed a development deal with Like Nastya, whose 25 channels carry more than 450M subscribers, for an animated preschool series on Disney+, and added two Headgum video podcasts to Disney+ and Hulu (Deadline).

  5. California Fines Undisclosed Political Posts: Governor Newsom signed AB 1130, letting the state fine creators up to $5K per violation for undisclosed paid political content, joining Texas ahead of the midterms (TechCrunch).

  6. Toys "R" Us Builds Creator Studios: Toys "R" Us is opening 120 standalone US stores for the holidays, with Creator Studios in select locations where brands and creators can film content and stage product launches (Forbes).

  7. ByteDance Out-Earns Meta: ByteDance's first-half revenue rose about 30% to $120B, edging past Meta's $117B for the first time, with TikTok Shop a key growth engine even as AI spending pulled profit down to about $20B (WSJ).

  8. Live Podcasts Up 80%: Acast's Podcast Pulse 2026 survey of 4,300 listeners across 13 markets found live podcast attendance up 80% since 2024, with 28% of attendees buying from event sponsors (Podnews).

  9. TBPN Gets a Social Commerce Clone: Sammi Cohen and former Greycroft principal Alaina Hartley are launching the Social Commerce Network, a TBPN-style live business show streaming three times a week from October 6 (Variety).

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