Whatnot, Podean & the Commerce Land Grab

The Digital Dealflow

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Quartermast Advisors
July 23, 2026

Good Morning,

Commerce agency Podean acquired Social Commerce Club, the TikTok Shop Platinum Partner behind campaigns for HeyDude, Hanes, and Playtex, adding 70 specialists in what is Podean's sixth acquisition in nine months. The same day, live-shopping platform Whatnot bought AI startup Shaped, bringing over founder Tullie Murrell and nearly a dozen engineers to run real-time recommendations across streams, sellers, and products.

Staying in creator software, Influencer Hero acquired creator marketplace Afluencer and its roster of more than 17,000 creators and 3,500 brands. In agency land, Omnicom is merging Mediahub and Hearts & Science into a single unnamed global network under Hearts & Science CEO Garrett O'Reilly, with Australia carved out.

Two creator operators changed direction. Brian Flanagan stepped down as president of Mythical after nearly a decade to build a stealth system-of-record data startup for creator businesses, with Rhett and Link joining as advisors and investors. And Emma Chamberlain is pulling Chamberlain Coffee, which has raised roughly $15M since 2019, out of thousands of grocery doors and back toward DTC and its two LA cafes.

On the pre-M&A radar, Tencent is in talks to buy Israeli games studio SuperPlay from Playtika at a $1B to $1.5B valuation, less than two years after Playtika paid $690M for it. SuperPlay booked $573M in revenue in 2025 and the earnout owed its founders has climbed to $829M, which Tencent would assume.

Tom Brady slapped Logan Paul on stage at Fanatics Fest and neither will say whether it was staged- the rare unannounced partnership that outperformed every announced one this week.

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Layoff Watch:

  • Disney: Cutting several hundred roles in its third restructuring of 2026, including roughly 150 at Pixar and just under 100 across Disney Entertainment Television, with on-air ESPN talent going as it absorbs NFL Network.

  • Sherwood News: Robinhood shut the outlet and its site outright, cutting nearly all remaining editorial staff a month after a 290-role, 10% company-wide reduction.

The Weekly Roundup

  1. YouTube Builds Netflix-Style Shows: Partner Program creators can now reformat playlists into serialized "shows" with poster art, custom backdrops, and title cards, pushing the living-room experience closer to a streamer's (Tubefilter).

  2. TikTok Shop Sells Managed Services: TikTok launched a US managed-services program running marketing, automated ads, creator hiring, and listing optimization for sellers at a $10,000 flat fee plus 10% to 20% commission per sale (Business Insider).

  3. YouTube's $60B Footprint: YouTube's 2025 US Impact Report put its contribution to US GDP at $60B, up from $55B, supporting 540,000 full-time-equivalent jobs, with 55% of ad and subscription revenue going to Partner Program creators (Tubefilter).

  4. TikTok Returns to Government Phones: The DOJ ruled the US-controlled TikTok USDS joint venture falls outside the No TikTok on Government Devices Act because it operates independently of ByteDance, the first such opening since 2022 (Reuters).

  5. France Bans Under-15s: France passed a law banning under-15s from social media, the first EU country to move ahead of the bloc's own proposal (Gizmodo).

  6. Creators Storm Washington: More than 30 creators went to Washington for the first Creator Advocacy Day, meeting members of Congress plus YouTube, TikTok, and the National Association of Broadcasters (Yahoo).

  7. Accenture and Whalar's Playbook: The pair walked through their post-acquisition integration, arguing the creator economy has moved from a CMO conversation to a CEO one (Digiday).

  8. Mastercard's Foodie Play: Mastercard is leaning on food creators to drive awareness and adoption, routing acquisition spend through creator partnerships rather than traditional media (Digiday).

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