The biggest YouTuber in the world is looking beyond videos to build a multibillion-dollar empire.
For the last several months, Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, has been talking with investors about raising $200 million in a funding round that would value his holding company, Beast Industries, at more than $5 billion. An investor pitch deck I’ve obtained gives an unprecedented look at the fast-growing, money-losing business of MrBeast and his future plans. (Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw first reported that MrBeast is raising money last week.)
To justify that eye-popping valuation of at least $5 billion, investors are betting that the future of MrBeast’s business will be selling physical products, not making videos. Beast Industries and its roughly 500 employees see future revenue growth coming from a series of consumer packaged goods (CPG). Revenue from the company’s chocolate brand, Feastables, matched the core video business in 2024 and is expected to exceed it this year.
Meanwhile, Beast Industries has never been profitable and doesn’t expect to be anytime soon. The company lost roughly $200 million over the last few years alone. Investors are planning to buy tens of millions of dollars worth of shares from employees and other existing shareholders in this round, which will allow insiders to cash out some of their stakes in the company.
Aside from Feastables, MrBeast has a bevy of new products coming in the next few years, including beverages, a snacks brand, and a cereal brand. He’s also planning to launch a mobile gaming division next year. Management is telling investors to expect an initial public offering in two to three years.
Other takeaways from the pitch deck:
- The two main divisions of Beast Industries, Content and Commerce, each made about $250 million in revenue for 2024, an overall 125 percent increase from 2023.
- The Content division loses money thanks mainly to its staggering production costs, which were more than 90 percent of revenue last year. (MrBeast has been public about losing money on his YouTube videos and Amazon reality show, Beast Games.)
- The Commerce division, which mainly consists of Feastables, saw net sales increase 160 percent from 2023. Sales are projected to increase over 100 percent this year.
- Forecasted business growth through 2026 is largely driven by Feastables ($520 million in expected revenue for 2025 followed by $780 million in 2026) and the launch of other consumer brands.
- Altogether, Beast Industries is expecting to make at least $900 million in revenue for 2025, followed by roughly $1.6 billion in revenue for 2026.
These numbers show how MrBeast is running his company like his YouTube channel by spending everything he makes to fuel more topline growth. During a recent interview on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Donaldson said he’s “reinvesting every dollar I make” and admitted to having “less than a million dollars” in his bank account.
For now, the strategy seems to be working. Even if he has hit the ceiling of what a creator can make from YouTube, Feastables is taking off. He’s the second-most-followed person in the world after Cristiano Ronaldo. And, while it was wildly expensive to make, his recent Beast Games reality show is already Amazon’s most-watched unscripted series ever.
In an emailed statement, spokesperson Matthew Hiltzik confirmed that Beast Industries is raising money and using “the unique reach of the MrBeast platform to build big, sustainable, revenue generating businesses. Thankfully there is strong interest from a wide range of investors and potential partners and we are raising hundreds of millions on a more than $5B valuation to help realize these many different opportunities.”
Now, it’s a matter of which investors are willing to bet on MrBeast transforming himself from the biggest YouTube star to a CPG mogul. Given his penchant for spending money to drive buzz, there’s also the question of how — and if — his company will turn a profit.
For his part, Donaldson doesn’t seem fazed by the stakes of what he’s building. “I don’t really feel risk,” he said during the recent podcast. “If anything, risk excites me. I have a high threshold for it.”
- Meta’s AI strategy: Sources tell me that Meta has a couple of unique angles to its standalone AI assistant app that’s in the works. For one, the planned ChatGPT rival will replace the existing companion app for the Meta Ray-Ban glasses, providing a unique hook into Meta’s expanding lineup of smart glasses. There’s also a plan to include an algorithmic feed of user interactions with Meta AI to help show what’s possible and hopefully make the app more engaging. Mark Zuckerberg is closely involved with the app’s development. Needless to say, the stakes are high. Meanwhile, I’m expecting the release of Llama 4 in the coming weeks to come with much fewer guardrails…
- More headlines: Apple needs more time to get its AI revamp of Siri right… Google is having a really tough time on the legal front in the US… Microsoft is changing its performance review process… Uber is offering Waymo rides exclusively in Austin, just in time for SXSW… Discord is planning an IPO… TikTok deal talks appear to be going nowhere… I ordered the new iPad Air and am thinking about getting the new sky blue MacBook Air.
Some noteworthy job changes in the tech world:
- We finally got some names of researchers who have joined Ilya Sutskever’s hyper-secretive Safe Superintelligence startup: Yair Carmon, Yaron Brodsky, Shahar Papini, and Nitzan Tor.
- Chris Struhar, a former Meta product leader, joined Google as VP of product for the Gemini app.
- Swami Sivasubramanian is leading a new “agentic AI” developer team for Amazon AWS.
- Justin Mezzell is CEO of the new Digg.
- Rachel Whetstone, Netflix’s former head of communications, joined Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor’s AI startup, Sierra.
- YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s covery story interview with Variety.
- Satya Nadella at South Park Commons.
- Meta CPO Chris Cox’s at Morgan Stanley’s tech conference.
- The Tucker Carlson interview that landed Sam Bankman-Fried in solitary confinement.
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