WildBrain's $69M Bet & Amazon's $2B Pledge

The Digital Dealflow

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Quartermast Advisors
August 27, 2026

Good Morning,

WildBrain acquired Personality AI, the kid-safe conversational-character startup behind the "Hey Peppa Pig" experience on Amazon Kids+, for roughly $11M cash plus 1,000,000 shares at closing and up to $56M more in performance-based cash tied to revenue targets through CY2029- a headline value of $69M. Founder John Goscha joins WildBrain's executive team as EVP. Wonder picked up Salt Hank's, the New York sandwich shop Henry LaPorte built out of his food-creator audience, for undisclosed terms.

Travis Kelce, Publicis Sports, and 3 Arts Sports launched TEKTA, an NIL venture matching brands against a network of 45,000 Division I athletes across 68 Power Four universities, in a market Opendorse sizes at $4.5B.

Meanwhile on the capital side, KKR signed for a minority stake in BookMyShow, India's dominant movie and live-events ticketing platform, reportedly around 6% for $40M to $50M. DAZN agreed to acquire EverPass Media, which holds exclusive commercial rights to NFL Sunday Ticket in bars, restaurants, and hotels; terms weren't disclosed, but RedBird Capital, the NFL's 32 Equity, and TKO Group Holdings all become minority shareholders in DAZN. And Prime Video committed more than $2B to Latin America between 2027 and 2030, more than doubling its local originals slate by 2030.

Meta settled with 29 states for $16B this week, days after a report alleged it had been paying parenting influencers to campaign against teen social media bans. Paying influencers to stop the rules, then paying the states because of them- somewhere a CFO is running the ROI on both line items.

Quartermast Creator Economy Index:

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Layoff Watch:

  • Pink News: Proposing to cut 9 to 11 of its 25 staff and close its office after Snap retired the Shows and Publisher Stories formats behind most of its revenue, with Snapchat income expected to fall more than 80%.

  • Vox: Cut four editorial staff in its first restructuring since James Murdoch's Lupa Systems closed its $300M-plus acquisition of Vox.com, New York Magazine, and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

The Weekly Roundup

  1. YouTube Pays to Stay: YouTube is reportedly offering top creators millions for exclusive upload windows to keep them away from Netflix, financing creator-led productions and guaranteeing shares of platform-wide brand deals; the platform did roughly $40B in ad revenue in 2025 (Bloomberg).

  2. Bilibili Goes Global: China's 350M-user video platform relaunched its international app, dropped the ID and passport signup requirement, and is adding staff in Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, São Paulo, Istanbul, and Tokyo (Semafor).

  3. Patreon Ships 30 Features: Patreon rolled out 30 new and revamped features including a clipping tool for paywalled video, interest-based communities, and a recommendation change favoring smaller creators, repositioning from a membership layer into a discovery platform (Tubefilter).

  4. Twitch's Opt-In Problem: A streamer filed a class action against Twitch and Amazon over generative AI training, two weeks after Twitch auto-opted in all creators and its chief product officer said "if it was opt-in, nobody would opt in" (Courthouse News).

  5. Microdramas Own the Ad Load: Microdrama app downloads hit 1.45 billion in H1 2026, up 95.5% year over year against 16.6% growth for non-gaming apps, with 1,887 microseries apps running 3 million ads and the highest ad density of any category (Marketing Dive).

  6. Australia's Ban Isn't Working: Nine months into the under-16 social media ban, screen-time data from 19,000 Australian families shows 26% of 13-to-15-year-olds still active on TikTok against 27% before the ban, with WhatsApp use in that cohort up from 27% to 36% (Tubefilter).

  7. 42% Have an Exit Plan: Consumer Technology Association data shows 42% of US creators now have a clear exit plan, rising to 60% among full-time creators, with burnout and life changes ranking above money as the trigger (Scalable).

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