Whalar Group’s Co-CEO On Creators’ ‘Next Frontier’ — and Where He’s Investing

Neil Waller has a lot more money to invest in creators these days. Earlier this year, he and James Street sold Whalar, the influencer marketing agency they founded a decade ago, to Accenture Song in a deal widely speculated to be worth more than $500 million (making it the biggest creator economy transaction in history). Now they’re putting their capital — and their conviction — behind what Waller calls “the next frontier of the creator economy”: turning internet personalities into full-fledged media companies and consumer brands under their larger umbrella company, Whalar Group.

But with millions of creators commanding audiences, how does Waller decide which ones are actually worth investing in? And what separates the next likely enduring entertainment empire from an influencer whose fame might fade tomorrow?

I sat down with the Los Angeles-based Waller, whose Whalar Group oversees six businesses and 360 employees, to find out where he’s placing his next bets, what he looks for before backing a creator and why he believes the biggest fortunes in the creator economy are still ahead.

Waller also shares why the time was right to sell Whalar — “the first time a dividend went out of the business,” he says, but it wasn’t just about the money. He also unpacks how he sorted through the decision with Whalar’s co-CEOs, Jo Cronk and Emma Harman, whom I profiled this week for The Ankler’s Future of Entertainment 25.

And he reveals his plans to continue to be aggressive with his bets in the creator space. As he puts it: “When you’ve just banked what we’ve banked, you can go bigger and play longer.”

Here’s what he told me about deciding where to invest:

• Finding winners: what he says separates creators who can build lasting businesses from those who can’t make the leap
• The two key opportunities he clocked early that showed the moment opening for rising digital talent
• The building blocks for a creator business to outgrow the personality who started it
• What changed when Accenture came calling — and Waller’s plan to spend his additional cash “firepower”