Closed Deals, Client Wins, and Active Projects | RockWater 1H 2025 Recap

June 6, 2025 by Chris Erwin

RockWater Roundup

M&A analysis of the creator economy to make you a better operator and investor.

Hi friends,

It’s been a momentous first half of 2025 for our RockWater team.

We delivered strong wins for our clients, went global with our events business, and achieved new audience milestones by our weekly M&A newsletter and LinkedIn content.

Below is a quick recap of what we’ve been working on, and a preview of things to come.

If you’re looking to sell a creator or digital agency business, or sponsor one of our events, DM me or send an email to chris at wearerockwater dot com.

Onward,

Chris

Founder of RockWater

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🏁 Closed Deals and Client Wins

Finalized the sale of our client’s influencer marketing platform to a larger IM platform / agency. Deal details to be announced soon.
Fixated closed a $10M investment from Elridge Industries. The creator management and monetization company is now rapidly growing via M&A, announcing the acquisition of two talent agencies last month
Built investment and operational plan for digital media investment fund, which successfully deployed four investments directly into creator businesses in 2025, including participation in the $45M investment into Good Good Golf.
Electric Monster’s portfolio of YouTube channels closed the sale of their business to ZATV (fka Brat TV). Former CEO Matt Gielen also just wrote a touchstone piece on the future of digital media in TubeFilter, which you can check out here.
Our long time industry friends Chris and Kevin Balfe sold Red Seat Ventures, including subsidiaries CrimeCon and The First Digital, to Fox in a landmark creator x audio deal.
Video dubbing technology company Linguana raised an $8.5M Series A.
Secured bridge financing for a FAST platform and ad exchange in need of working capital.

🚀 Active M&A Mandates

Brought two leading social publisher companies to market for an M&A sales process. Now entering final bid rounds and working to close by end of summer / early fall 🤞
Exited merger talks with an inbound buyer for a high-growth talent and audio sales agency. We’re now advising on a potential JV with a strategic partner while concurrently initiating a formal M&A sales process.
Completed M&A readiness diagnostic for digital talent agency. Determined to let the business demonstrate additional year of growth before initiating sale early in 2026.
Completed M&A readiness diagnostic for explosive growth creator e-Learning agency. Now in discussions to bring to market for a sales process in the second half of 2025.
Negotiating term sheet for lead investor of Series A for social-native product business.
Prepping to bring two different digital talent agencies for M&A sales process by start of Q3. DM if you want to be on buyers list 👍
Preparing M&A readiness diagnostic for two different influencer marketing technology platforms. May initiate sales processes in second half of 2025.

📈 Strategic Growth and Corporate Advisory

Restructured rate card, org chart, and operating budget for digital talent management company.
Constructed business plan and budget for nextgen premium SVOD platform incubated by a content studio and talent representation company. Founders are receiving traction from the investor community.
Built go-to-market business and capital plan for celebrity backed creative agency, which is now fundraising.
Preparing sports-focused creator and athlete management company for upcoming buyer / strategic partner conversations.
Counseled digital content studio, an Asia-based talent business, and an Asia-based digital agency on M&A negotiations for inbound deal offers. We helped our clients make data-based decisions to walk away and wait for better deals.

🎤 Community & Thought Leadership

Paid out thousands of dollars of referral fees as a thank you to industry peers who send clients our way. This is our favorite type of OPEX 🙌
Spoke about Investing in Creators at a SXSW panel with friends Ian Shepherd (Electrify), Megan Lightcap (Slow Ventures), and Eric Wei (Karat).
Wrote 20+ M&A deal breakdowns on our deal blog
Grew our weekly M&A newsletter, the RockWater Roundup, to over 13,000 readers. We’re loving all the new industry connections, client projects, and learnings as our readership community grows!
Gave a keynote at the 1 Billion Follower Summit about capital flows in the creator economy, and where we expect to see the most M&A activity in 2025
Got 2 shoutouts by The Information about 2025 kicking off a new growth cycle for the Creator Economy.
Syndicated our M&A deal breakdown videos to Instagram via our Creator Capital Flows account. YouTube and TikTok are next!
Spoke to the Wall Street Journal about ShopMy’s $78M fundraise and the growth of affiliate commerce.
Moderated a C-suite panel at SOCOM about brands prioritizing social commerce.
Spoke to AdWeek about new capital entering the influencer marketing space, and to Business Insider about the future of creator economy M&A.
Surpassed 10,000 followers on LinkedIn…follow for daily updates, and insights on creator economy M&A and dealmaking.
Was a guest on the Retail Tech podcast to discuss all things creator economy and social commerce…look out for more podcast interviews in 2025!

🎉 RockWater IRL

Stars are aligning for our biggest ever Night Before Vidcon Event yet. We had 230+ attendees last year. Should we break 400 this year?
Hosted our first exec networking event at SXSW, a VIP BBQ at a mansion in the North Austin suburbs. Thanks to RockWater Director Michael Booth for sourcing the venue!
Held our first international event in January for Dubai’s 1 Billion Follower Summit.
Cohosted CreatorWeek NYC afterparty with The Creator Society for 125+ guests, including a toast about why you’re in the right place, at the right time.
Raised $3,000 for LA fire victims via our February LA Exec Mixer.
Continued our track record of working with sponsors for multiple RockWater events, including Greenberg Glusker (our largest ever multi-event sponsorship), Tipalti, Select Management, Komi Group, and Linguana. RockWater and our guests thank you!

🤝 Team

Hired Adam Tung, our rockstar intern from USC, to be a full-time analyst starting this June.
Hired a new USC intern, Jason Copeland, who’s been crushing it for us. He’ll be with us full time over the summer, can’t wait!

Let’s connect if you:

Want to buy or exit a creator economy or digital services business
Want to sponsor or attend a RockWater event
Have a project that deserves top-tier M&A or growth strategy support

DM me on LinkedIn or at chris @ wearerockwater dot com

Here’s to the growth of our creator and media industries, and a great second half of 2025.

Onward,

Chris
Founder, RockWater

I’m the founder of RockWater Industries. We do M&A and strategy advisory for creator economy and digital agencies. From buy / sell-side M&A and fundraising, to consumer research and go-to-market planning.

DM me on LinkedIn or email me chris @ wearerockwater dot com