Creatoreconomy M&A is accelerating again, with 2025 marking a clear turning point. Business Insider has reported a 17.4% yearonyear increase in deal activity, in a sign that the market has regained confidence and strategic clarity following two years when perhaps this market was redefining itself. Momentum has carried straight into 2026, with early-year moves including PMG’s acquisition of influencer agency Digital Voices.
Buyers have genuinely changed what they want. The old wave of big influencer agencies, lots of delivery, lots of people, but not much they actually owned, just isn’t exciting anyone anymore. They did the job, but they were pretty interchangeable. Now the money is going into social native businesses with something defensible: IP, audiences, communities and real distribution power. Global’s majority stake in The Overlap is a good example, with buyers chasing creator-led media brands, not just another delivery shop.
And that’s because social itself has changed. Social isn’t a channel anymore, it’s the infrastructure everything sits on, and the scale behind that shift is huge. The global socialcommerce market reached around $872bn in 2025 and is expected to hit roughly $1.6tn by 2030, growing at about 13% CAGR a year, helped by rising social use, and platform-led commerce features like TikTok Shop.
That’s why businesses built around social behaviour, platform-native content, and creator-led ecosystems are attracting disproportionate buyer interest. They offer something traditional influencer agencies can’t, repeatable audience engagement, multiple revenue streams and cultural proximity that’s genuinely hard to replicate.
Recent moves from the networks say a lot. Publicis has snapped up Captiv8, one of the largest creator platforms globally, and pushed further into influencer markets with BR Media Group in Brazil. Stagwell has been just as active, acquiring Create.Group to deepen its social and digital footprint across MENA, and adding JetFuel Studios to bolster its creatorled content and experiential capabilities. Private equity and growth investors are also stepping back in, but, more selectively, backing businesses with clear monetisation logic and lower budget volatility, seen in moves like PSG’s investment in Uscreen and Summit Partners’ backing of Later’s $250m acquisition of Mavely. OK COOL’s sale to Residence proved the point. Buyers were drawn to a socialnative, creatorled model with real IP, community depth and performance you can actually measure. From our work on that deal, it was clear that the assets sitting closest to culture and commerce are pulling in the most interest.
Looking ahead, 2026 isn’t just shaping up to be busy, it’s shaping up to be decisive. The gap between businesses that own IP, audiences and distribution, and those that don’t, is widening fast. Buyers know it, platforms know it, and creators know it. The deals we’re seeing now are buyers locking in the capabilities they won’t be able to build later. For the right assets, the ones embedded in culture, with real communities and a direct line to commerce, this is a very good year to be in the market.
