Fixated Acquires Ellify & Elevate // $63M Fuels 4 Acquisitions in Under a Year

By Chris Erwin

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Let’s break it down…

–SELLER: Ellify–

Overview

• Gaming-focused digital talent management agency and influencer marketing firm

• Specializes in Roblox, Minecraft, and Pokémon-native creators on YouTube and social media

• Founded 2016 by Adam Ferguson, Kyle Hou, and Derek Howe

• ~17-person team across talent management, brand partnerships, and operations

• HQ in Vancouver, Canada

Company Highlights

• ~200 creators on managed roster

• Largest pool of Roblox creators globally (per company)

• Influencer marketing campaigns executed for 10+ major brands including Google, Audible, NordVPN, Dollar Shave Club, and Sony Pictures

• 100M+ views generated across brand campaign executions

Founding Story

• Founded in Vancouver in 2016 by Adam Ferguson, Kyle Hou, and Derek Howe as a small YouTube creator rep business

• Built on a no-predatory-contracts philosophy from the start; many team members are former creators themselves

• Expanded over a decade into full-service management and influencer marketing

• Developed particular depth in Roblox, Minecraft, and Pokémon creator communities, as they were niches most agencies underweighted

• Ferguson and Fixated CBO Ali Adab had a prior working relationship at BroadbandTV, one of Canada's early creator-economy companies, which seeded the eventual acquisition

Business Model & Services 

• Talent Management…

• Full-service creator representation; commission on creator brand deal and platform revenue

• Roster includes Foltyn, XiaomaNYC, MandJTV, Nevada, Steak, and The Besties

• Influencer Marketing (Agency)…

• Brand-side campaign execution connecting advertisers to Ellify's creator roster; fees typically structured as a percentage of campaign budget or flat management fee

• Clients include Google, Audible, Dollar Shave Club, NordVPN, Sony Pictures, and Skillshare

Select Capital Markets History:

• Jan 2026: Acquired by Fixated

–SELLER 2: Elevate–

Overview

• Talent management and creator monetization company

• Specializes in community growth and direct-to-fan subscription revenue for lifestyle creators

• Founded 2023 by Kai Plunk

• ~18 team members

• HQ in Charlotte, NC

Company Highlights

• 35+ managed creators

• 68M+ combined followers across talent roster

• $15M+ in total earnings generated for creators since founding

Founding Story

• Kai Plunk spent over three years as a Creative Producer at MrBeast before founding Elevate in 2023

• He observed that most management agencies are run by people who have been adjacent to content creation but never made content themselves

• Having been a creator himself, he built Elevate to fill that gap; prioritizing operator-level content fluency alongside traditional management services

• By the time of the Fixated acquisition, Elevate had quietly built what Fixated describes as "best-in-class systems around community and subscription monetization"

Business Model & Services 

• Talent Management…

• Career management for 35+ lifestyle creators; commission on brand deals sourced by Elevate

• Notable clients include CrazyJamJam, MaisieLynnie, and Taalia Vess

• Structured on non-exclusive agreements; no clip on creator revenue from outside relationships

• Brand Partnerships…

• Creator-brand matchmaking prioritizing value alignment over volume

• Fees on deals sourced, non-exclusive structure

• Community & Subscription Monetization…

• Elevate's core differentiator

• Building recurring direct-to-fan revenue through memberships, paid messaging, and exclusive content access; fees generated through revenue share on subscription platforms

Select Capital Markets History:

• Mar 2026: Acquired by Fixated

–BUYER: Fixated–

Overview

• Digital talent management and creator development company

• Built to function as a full-service platform for creator businesses rather than a traditional management shop

• Total capital raised / committed: ~$62.8M from Eldridge Industries 

• 80 associated members via LinkedIn

• HQ in LA

Company Highlights

• Proprietary micro-influencer clipping network of 25,000+ vetted creators that syndicate and amplify content on behalf of Fixated's talent roster

• Creator partners collectively reach 140M+ subscribers across platforms

• Fixated's owned meme pages and micro-influencer clipping network generate 3B+ views per month across social media

Founding Story

• Founded in 2023 by Zach Katz and Jason Wilhelm, who identified a gap in the creator economy for full-service, business-building management beyond traditional brand deal brokering

• Katz is a trained attorney and longtime music industry veteran — former North America President of BMG and President/COO of FaZe Clan — who brought major label-style infrastructure thinking to creator management

• Wilhelm co-founded TikTok creator management company TalentX in 2019, was a gaming creator himself with two successful YouTube channels, co-founded Sway House, and served as Director of Gaming at Studio71 — bringing deep roots in digital-native talent and short-form video

• Secured early backing from Eldridge Industries in March 2025, validating the model and providing runway to build out talent, content, and distribution capabilities

• Grew rapidly by treating creators as companies — offering layered support across content strategy, production, distribution, and monetization

• Secured a $50M follow-on investment commitment from Eldridge in December 2025, launching an aggressive M&A strategy to build the creator economy's first vertically integrated talent and content platform

Business Model and Services

• Talent Management…

• Full-service creative and strategic management; commission on creator revenue across brand deals and platform payments

• Roster includes Sketch, Botez sisters, Zach Justice, Sofie Dossi, and Yonna Jay

• Music-industry-style guidance covering identity development, collaboration strategy, and platform-specific roadmapping

• Content Studio…

• In-house production for creator clients, Fixated O&O brands, and brand partners; production and creative services fees

• Covers ideation, scripting, production, thumbnail design, and editing

• Distribution & Clipping Network…

• 25,000+ micro-creator clipping network operating in two modes: open high-volume distribution for maximum reach, and a curated ~100-creator server for brand-safe premium campaigns

• Revenue participation structured as a share of views-generated income or brand-sponsored distribution fees

• Brand Partnerships…

• Brokering sponsorships and integrations across the full Fixated roster; fee-based revenue from deals negotiated on behalf of talent

• Expanded through Ellify (gaming/youth) and Elevate (lifestyle/DTC) acquisitions

• Community & Subscriptions…

• Direct-to-fan membership, messaging, and subscription monetization; revenue share on subscription platforms

• Co-led by Kai Plunk and Chris Michael within Fixated's newly formed Community division

Select Capital Markets History:

• Mar 2026: Acquired Elevate Management Group, a Talent management and creator monetization company

• Jan 2026: Acquired Ellify, a gaming-focused digital talent management company (seven-figure deal per trades)

• Dec 2025: Raised $50M follow-on investment commitment from Eldridge Industries to fund M&A, talent representation expansion, and creator infrastructure buildout

• Apr 2025: Acquired Moondust Management, a creator talent management company

• Apr 2025: Acquired CAMP Talent, a creator talent management company

• Mar 2025: Raised a $12.8M initial investment from Eldridge Industries (see our analysis on the investment)

• 2023/2024: Unknown seed funding

–DEAL DETAILS–

Overview

Fixated / Ellify

• Announced January 14, 2026

• Deal valued in the seven-figure range (per Deadline)

Fixated / Elevate

• Announced March 3, 2026

• Financial terms not disclosed

Strategic Rationale

Fixated / Ellify

• Expands Fixated's footprint in gaming, one of the fastest-growing cultural verticals for reaching Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences through creator-led formats

• Adds ~200 brand-safe creators across Roblox, Minecraft, and Pokémon niches, including the largest claimed pool of Roblox creators globally

• Gives Ellify's roster access to Fixated's content production, distribution infrastructure, and monetization processes, accelerating creator business growth

• Deepens Fixated's ability to serve brands seeking authentic access to younger audiences through gaming-native creators

• "As brands compete for authentic access to younger audiences, gaming has become one of the most important cultural verticals in the world. Ellify sits at the center of that ecosystem," said Zach Katz, Co-Founder and CEO of Fixated

• "After a decade of building Ellify and being fiercely independent, we have joined Fixated to change the game and build a new kind of creator business, one focused solely on creator success and growth," said Adam Ferguson, Co-Founder and CEO of Ellify

Fixated / Elevate

• Adds a specialized direct-to-fan monetization capability, giving Fixated infrastructure to help creators build recurring revenue through memberships, messaging, and exclusive access

• Expands Fixated's roster with 35+ lifestyle creator clients and a team of ~18 specialists focused on community growth and brand-safe subscription models

• Positions Fixated as a full-stack creator platform spanning gaming, talent representation, content production, distribution, and owned fan monetization

• "Creators are increasingly thinking like entrepreneurs, not just talent. They want predictable revenue, direct access to their audience, and platforms that align with their personal brand," said Zach Katz, CEO of Fixated

• "At its core, direct-to-fan monetization is about putting the fans first. Joining Fixated allows us to scale that model while giving creators the strategic support they need to grow long-term," said Kai Plunk, Co-Founder of Elevate

Post Deal Operations

Fixated / Ellify

• Ellify co-founders Adam Ferguson (CEO), Kyle Hou (COO), and Derek Howe (CCO) will continue in leadership roles within the Fixated ecosystem

Fixated / Elevate

• Kai Plunk will co-lead Fixated's Community division alongside Chris Michael, Fixated's Head of Community

• Elevate will continue operating its direct-to-fan subscription model under Fixated's broader platform infrastructure

–WHAT ELSE I FIND INTERESTING–

Fixated's Playbook: From Tuck-In Acquisitions to Capability Purchases

When we covered Eldridge's initial $12.8M investment in Fixated in March 2025, we noted that M&A was an explicit planned use of funds — specifically targeting talent rep firms, monetization tools, and owned-and-operated media. Since then, Fixated secured a $50M follow-on commitment from Eldridge in December 2025 to fund future M&A and growth opportunities, bringing total committed capital to roughly $63M. And they've moved fast.

Four acquisitions in under a year. CAMP Talent and Moondust Management came first in April 2025, just weeks after the initial Eldridge investment closed. Both were smaller deals — no financial terms disclosed, and the profile supports that read. CAMP Talent was a solo-founder shop (Cam Partridge) with a roster of about eight named creators including Jason Nash and Heath Hussar. Moondust Management, founded by Kamla Pande in 2019, was similarly lean — a small team focused on travel, lifestyle, and wellness creators like Kiersten Rich and Lee Asher. These were tuck-in acquisitions: add creators to the roster, bring the founder-managers into the Fixated infrastructure, keep moving.

Post the $50M commitment, the scale stepped up. Ellify brought ~200 managed creators and a ~17-person team — a meaningful operating business with a decade of history in gaming-focused talent management. Elevate added 35+ creators, an ~18-person team, and a differentiated subscription monetization capability that had already generated $15M+ in creator earnings. These aren't $100M+ platform deals, but they're materially larger operating businesses than the earlier tuck-ins, and they came with capabilities Fixated didn't have before.

What stands out is what Fixated is building toward with each deal. The acquisitions map to a few clear priorities.

First, growing the talent roster. Every deal adds managed creators to Fixated's ecosystem — more inventory to monetize across brand deals, content production, and platform revenue. The combined roster now spans gaming (Ellify), lifestyle and community (Elevate, Moondust), and general entertainment (CAMP, plus Fixated's existing clients). It's a deliberate buildout of scale across verticals.

Second, adding capabilities. This is where it gets more interesting than a standard roll-up. Alongside the CAMP and Moondust acquisitions, Fixated hired Jeff Shaivitz (formerly BENlabs, Studio71, Fullscreen) and Tim Mulligan (formerly Cloud9, 100 Thieves) to build out a dedicated brand partnerships and ad sales function. Then with Elevate, they acquired a specialized direct-to-fan subscription and community monetization operation — Kai Plunk now co-leads a new Community division within Fixated. These are capability purchases, not just roster additions. Fixated is building the internal infrastructure to monetize creators across multiple revenue streams: brand deals, content services, subscriptions, and distribution.

Third, the distribution layer. One piece that's new since we last wrote about Fixated is their proprietary clipping network — a network of 25,000+ vetted micro-creators that syndicate and amplify content on behalf of Fixated's talent roster, reportedly generating 3B+ views per month. They operate it in two modes: a high-volume open network for maximum reach, and a curated ~100-creator tier for brand-safe premium campaigns. That's a meaningful owned distribution asset that most talent management companies simply don't have, and it gives Fixated a differentiated pitch to both creators and brand partners.

Fourth, the vertical focus. Gaming and lifestyle are the two clear bets. Ellify gives Fixated deep access to Roblox, Minecraft, and Pokémon-native creators — demographics that skew Gen Z and Gen Alpha and are largely inaccessible to traditional management firms without authentic community credibility. Moondust and Elevate layer in lifestyle, wellness, travel, and community-driven creators with high-loyalty audiences suited for subscription monetization. These aren't random verticals — they're the segments where creator-led engagement is strongest and where brand dollars are increasingly flowing.

The overall pattern is what we predicted in our earlier analysis: Fixated is executing against a vertically integrated creator platform thesis. Management, content production, brand partnerships, distribution, and now direct-to-fan monetization — all under one roof, funded by committed PE capital. Four acquisitions and multiple senior hires in under 12 months is a real pace of execution. Whether the integration holds and whether this model produces better economics than the sum of its parts is the next question. But the strategy is legible and the capital is deployed.

It's worth noting that Propagate Content — a traditional Hollywood studio, not a digital-native company — is running a strikingly similar playbook with $50M from Ares and three creator/talent acquisitions of its own. When two PE-backed platforms with very different DNA converge on the same strategy at the same time, that's a market signal.

The Talent Management Roll-Up Playbook Is Changing

The broader talent management consolidation wave we've been tracking for years is accelerating. We've written extensively about why this is happening — the fragmented landscape, the PE capital flowing in, the parallels to Hollywood talent agency roll-ups — in our analysis of Initial Group's acquisition of Silver Tribe Media, our 2026 Creator M&A Outlook, Propagate's acquisition of Parker Management, and several prior pieces. We're not going to rehash all of that here. But what's worth highlighting is how the consolidation strategy itself is shifting based on recent deal activity and conversations we're having with active buyers.

The original talent management roll-up thesis was straightforward: acquire management firms, add clients, earn more commission. More talent, more brand deals, more revenue. That logic still holds, and roster growth remains the baseline motivation — every deal in this space adds creators to the acquirer's managed roster. But the more sophisticated buyers are now optimizing for what we'd call revenue per creator — acquiring capabilities that increase how much each managed creator generates across multiple revenue streams, not just adding more creators to the roster. It's a shift from scale economics to unit economics, and it's reshaping what buyers are willing to pay for.

We're seeing this play out in real time across multiple consolidators.

Fixated's acquisition of Elevate brought in a direct-to-fan subscription and community monetization operation — a capability Fixated didn't have before. It's not just more creators; it's a new revenue stream that generates recurring, predictable income. Propagate Content is following a similar playbook. After raising $50M from Ares Management in February 2026 (valued at roughly $200M per WSJ), Propagate acquired Estate 5 in February — a Dallas-based digital talent management agency focused on fashion and lifestyle creators, with strong ties to the LTK affiliate platform — folding it into its Parker Management division. Then in March, Propagate acquired Sway Social, a creator-first affiliate and social commerce agency that manages end-to-end affiliate operations including storefront strategy, commission negotiation, content production, and revenue optimization. Sway Social had worked with 100+ creators and brands since its 2021 founding and was reportedly acquired in the mid-to-high seven figures. That's not a traditional talent management acquisition — it's a monetization infrastructure purchase. Propagate is adding the tools to help its creators generate measurable, performance-based income through affiliate and social commerce, on top of traditional brand deal commissions.

Initial Group's acquisition of Silver Tribe Media follows a similar logic from a different angle. Silver Tribe built the D2C production and monetization infrastructure for premium talent like Peyton Manning and Colin Cowherd — helping them transition from traditional media into owning scalable digital media businesses. As we wrote in our analysis of that deal, Initial Group wasn't just buying a management firm; they were buying the operational infrastructure to turn talent into enterprise value. The capability — not just the client list — was the asset.

The pattern across these deals is consistent: talent management consolidators are acquiring capabilities in premium brand partnerships, affiliate and social commerce, D2C subscription monetization, and content production. The goal is to increase and diversify revenue and margin per creator, which builds more durable enterprise value and strengthens future exit prospects for the PE investors funding these platforms. In our active deal conversations with buyers, we're seeing this firsthand — there is materially more interest in companies that can deliver premium brand partnership execution and direct-to-consumer monetization infrastructure than there was even 12 months ago. Buyers want businesses that make the overall talent platform stickier, more diversified, and more valuable on a per-creator basis.

The talent management consolidation thesis is evolving. It started as a scale play — aggregate more talent under one roof. Now it's becoming a capability play — acquire the tools and teams that increase how much value each creator generates, and across how many revenue streams. There's a competitive recruitment dynamic here too: the race to sign top talent is getting more intense, and creators increasingly expect their management partner to show up with more than just brand deal brokering. Content support, distribution reach, subscription monetization, affiliate operations — the firms that can offer a broader suite of capabilities have a real edge in recruiting and retaining the talent that drives the underlying economics. 

We think revenue per creator is becoming the defining metric of this next phase of talent management consolidation, and we'll keep updating our readership as the strategy continues to develop.

(NOTE: We're actively advising talent and creator businesses navigating this exact dynamic; see our live deal flow in the newsletter intro section for our current mandates in the space.)

The Roblox Creator Market Is Bigger Than Most Talent Firms Realize

Sources: Roblox Economic Impact Report / Netinfluencer, Roblox Q4 2025 Earnings / Game Developer, Tubefilter, Digiday

Roblox now has over 110 million daily active users, and creators earned more than $1 billion through the platform's Developer Exchange program from March 2024 to March 2025, up 31% year-over-year. The top 1,000 creators averaged $1.3 million in earnings in 2025, and the platform now accounts for 3.4% of the global gaming content market. This is a real economy, and one where M&A is already active. Companies like DoBig Studios and Voldex have been acquiring top-performing Roblox games from independent developers for millions of dollars apiece, with individual developers getting multimillion-dollar payouts. On the brand side, there are at least 90 developer studios building Roblox experiences for brands, with consolidation already underway; Super League acquired Supersocial, and Voldex acquired both Brookhaven RP and Welcome to Bloxburg. 

But despite the scale of this market, talent management representation for Roblox-native creators remains thin. Most traditional management firms and even most digital-native talent rep companies have limited authentic presence in the Roblox ecosystem. Anecdotally, we're hearing from more agencies interested in servicing Roblox creators who are building games and worlds, but the infrastructure to support these creators at scale — management, brand partnerships, content strategy — is still underdeveloped relative to the opportunity. 

That's the gap Fixated is targeting through its acquisition of Ellify, which claims the largest managed pool of Roblox creators globally. Whether Fixated can translate that positioning into real economic value will depend on how quickly brand partnerships and creator services mature within the Roblox economy, but the underlying market size increasingly justifies the bet.

Are Clipping and UGC Becoming Core Infrastructure?

One piece of Fixated's model that caught our attention is their proprietary clipping network — 25,000+ vetted micro-creators syndicating and amplifying content across social platforms, generating 3B+ views per month. It's a meaningful distribution asset, and it connects to a broader trend we're tracking across both the talent management and digital advertising ecosystems.

Clipping — the practice of taking long-form content and redistributing it as short-form clips across TikTok, Reels, and Shorts — has matured from a grassroots growth hack into a real business model. We covered this in our analysis of Tether's $200M investment in Whop, where one of Whop's fastest-growing verticals is its Content Rewards infrastructure — a performance marketing layer that pays creators per 1,000 views for clipping and UGC campaigns, with 780+ live programs and entire clipping agencies being built on top of it. Fixated's in-house clipping network is a proprietary version of the same concept, built to serve its own talent roster and brand partners.

More broadly, the UGC content market is accelerating as a standalone sector. Insignia-backed New Engen acquired Grapevine (creator-powered whitelisted paid social) and Donut Digital (UGC performance creative) as part of its roll-up of a full-funnel creator marketing stack for digital advertisers. And in just the past week, we've had conversations with both a UGC agency and a UGC marketplace that are growing quickly and exploring strategic options. The demand is coming from two directions: talent-side companies like Fixated that see clipping as an audience growth and distribution tool, and brand-side companies — the challenger ad networks and disruptor digital agencies — that increasingly view UGC and creator content production as a core part of the social services stack they need to offer clients. We expect more M&A activity in this segment over the next 12–18 months, and we'll be covering it as deals emerge.

I'm the founder of RockWater. We do M&A and strategy advisory for creator economy and social / audio agencies. From buy and sell-side M&A to valuation diagnostics and go-to-market planning. 

DM me on LinkedIn or email [email protected]

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