Work We Do

Ampverse

Ampverse Group, a prominent gaming company founded by executives from Twitch, Universal Music, and Havas. Ampverse Group specializes in both game marketing solutions (via Pulse) and game publishing services (via Pixel). The company is committed to enabling partners to meaningfully connect with gaming communities across Southeast Asia, India, and MENA, with its headquarters in Singapore and offices in Bangkok, Manila, Delhi, and Dubai.

Ampverse engaged RockWater to fine tune their global expansion strategy, identifying different markets and business lines to prioritize.

“RockWater did a great job stress-testing our assumptions, and bringing a global expertise to round out our thinking. They provided crucial insights including data points from complementary sectors, which supported our LT strategy, many of which we’re now implementing.”

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Charlie Bailie

Website

Whistle

Team Whistle – comprising Whistle, Tiny Horse, New Form Digital and Vertical Networks – is a global digital sports and entertainment company. Team Whistle creates and distributes engaging content experiences for today’s audiences, boasting over 4.2 billion monthly video views, 629 million total aggregated social audience, and 1600+ network channels.

Chris’s team delivered sharp decision-making frameworks and actionable market intelligence for our leadership. Their work significantly accelerated our go-forward planning and new product development

I regularly bounce new business ideas off Chris, as he has a great mind for sustainable value creation vs short term distractions in the media, tech and commerce industries. I look forward to working with him again

Michael Cohen, CEO

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Michael Cohen

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UnderCurrent Entertainment

UnderCurrent is a first of its kind 360 influencer representation company and record label. With talent including JoJo Siwa and Kira Kossin.

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UnderCurrent tapped RockWater to assess new growth opportunities within and external to its business. RockWater performed an extensive analysis to see where UnderCurrent could build on its strengths and get ahead of the market at large. This included developing new organization and compensation structures, revising rate cards, and enhancing customer acquisition strategy.

RockWater was my secret weapon when faced with the biggest decision I’ve ever faced at UnderCurrent. They’re wicked sharp operators who get the creator economy better than anyone else.

Eric Bogard, Founder of UnderCurrent Entertainment

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Eric Bogard

Website

Long Haul Management

Founded in 2013 by new media veteran Dan Levitt, Long Haul Management offers 360 talent representation for digital content creators at the intersection of sports, gaming, and culture. As one of the few premier independent digital talent agencies, Long Haul’s roster features Tier 1 talent including MatPat, MMG, The Professor, and Tristan Jass.

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Long Haul engaged RockWater as its exclusive sell-side M&A advisor to prepare for and run a sales process for the company. RockWater worked shoulder to shoulder with Long Haul’s team for fifteen months, which culminated in a successful acquisition by global sports and entertainment agency, Wasserman Media Group.

RockWater crushed it for me, and I’m thrilled with the successful outcome. The sale of Long Haul was a life-changing event for me, my team, and my clients. There were a countless number of curveballs that were thrown at us during the process and RockWater helped me navigate them excellently. I’m very grateful to Chris and his team for their hard work and dealmaking smarts throughout the sales process, and can not speak highly enough of them.

Dan Levitt, Founder and CEO, Long Haul Management

Who to know

Dan Levitt

Website

Bounty

Bounty is a Shopify app that turns creators into video marketing machines. The technology provides a platform for creators to earn cash back for engagement, while brands license the videos for paid media. The company was founded in 2021 and is backed by M13, Sugar Capital, and Interlace Ventures.

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Bounty engaged RockWater as a sell-side m&a advisor to find, structure, and broker a deal with a strategic acquirer. RockWater generated interest with 20+ potential buyers and successfully closed a deal with gen.video, a leading influencer marketing company connecting creativity and commerce worldwide.

After trying to sell Bounty in the past, I hired RockWater to expedite the process and ensure a favorable outcome. RockWater definitely delivered on that promise – they activated their network to create a lot of buzz for Bounty, pushed initial conversations along from interest → intent → offers, and were instrumental in getting the deal across the finish line. There were lots of ups and downs in the sales process, and RockWater was incredibly helpful throughout. I’d recommend them as an M&A advisor to any founder selling their business.

Abe Wolke, Founder & CEO, Bounty

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Abe Wolke

Website

VA Media

VA Media is a leader in global film / tv AVOD monetization, with a cornerstone focus on YouTube. VAM owns over 20 YouTube channels including Movies Central, Family Central, We are Pride, and more which amass billions of views per year. They are the go-to licensee for IP owners seeking to exploit their content on YouTube with clients including Banijay, All 3 Media, and ITN Studios.

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RockWater was tapped to identify VAM’s position within digital media’s evolving competitive landscape. RockWater’s findings forayed into a 2025 business plan for the company to execute.

“We started working with the team at Rockwater to help stress test the company’s global strategy. Being an Australian company with a high percentage of business in the US we needed to further understand our long term growth opportunities in that market and Rockwater provided a series of insights that helped us prioritize strategic initiatives and set a clear course into the future. Great guys to work with as well!”

Mark Ashbridge, CEO of VA Media

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Mark Ashbridge

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The Creator Society

Formed in early 2024 from a merger between 2Social and Ensemble Management, The Creator Society is a next-gen creator representation collective offering 360 management, affiliate marketing strategy, and product incubation.

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TCS engaged RockWater to formulate and implement its post merger integration, which included designing a new org structure and hiring plan, revamping its rate card, determining target customer personas and priority customer acquisition channels, creating a 2024 budget and 3 year operating forecast, setting KPIs, and implementing monthly FP&A systems.

I’ve known RockWater for over a decade and after working with them I can confidently say that they are THE elite advisor within the creator economy. They got deep into the trenches with our team during our merger, and gave us the help, insight and consult we needed to get through the merger and set up our company on a focused forward path. TCS is set up for tremendous success thanks to RockWater solidifying our foundation. It was great working with them and we are now starting a second phase with them for 2025 building on the foundation they helped build.

Larry Shapiro, CEO, The Creator Society

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Larry Shapiro

Website

Stir Entertainment

Stir is a specialist influencer representation agency with marquee clients including The Try Guys, WatchMojo, Watcher Entertainment, and more.

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Stir tapped RockWater to assess new growth opportunities within and external to its business. RockWater performed an extensive internal audit and conducted competitor analysis to see where Stir could build on its strengths and further differentiate itself. This included developing a new target customer persona and acquisition strategy, and a hiring / resource plan.

RockWater provided me immeasurably valuable insights at a critical inflection point of my business. They filtered out the noise and provided actionable recommendations that have been impactful to my business. Their team puts in the extra mile, still helping me long after the project has been completed and proactively making introductions to potential partners.

Ray Powell, CEO, Stir Entertainment + Brands

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Ray Powell

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ViacomCBS / Paramount

We specifically hired Chris and his team to support competitive landscape analysis, market intelligence and growth planning for branded ad sales solutions – as we better understood his broader capability set, we expanded our engagement to include new IP incubation ideas, IP valuation and more. I highly recommend RockWater to any client in need of sharp and actionable strategy advisory.

Thomas De Napoli, Sr. Director of Viacom Velocity

Who to know

Website

Cosmily

Cosmily has repeatedly engaged RockWater to prepare for its fundraises – creating its pitch, financial model, and sourcing investors.

Cosmily is a single platform that combines education, discovery, purchase, and community for skincare enthusiasts – generating custom skincare routines from experts and peers powered by data-driven personalization. It is a trusted platform that filters out the noise from branded, augmented, and negative content.

RockWater has been an invaluable resource, and is the first on my list to call when I need to kick off a fundraise.

Jeff Turnbull, Chief Executive Officer

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Jeff Turnbull

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At Will Media

At Will Media is an award-winning, full service podcast company. They are the go-to producer for innovative new audio formats, like the first singing competition podcast series for Audible, and the original Siegfried & Roy series for Apple TV+. At Will also makes premium content for brand partners like the New York Times, Netflix, and Marriott Bonvoy. At Will is quickly growing their portfolio of premium scripted and non-fiction originals, and is included in the first audio slate ever featured at the TriBeCa Festival.

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Will Malnati

Website

DWNLOAD Media

DWNLOAD is an audio aggregator who is rapidly acquiring small to medium size class independent podcast studios and networks, and rolling them all under one roof to create an independent audio juggernaut. RockWater is serving as DWNLOAD’s dedicated M&A team sourcing, assessing, and structuring all of its acquisitions.

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Chris Peterson

Website

Revry

Revry is a uniquely positioned streaming media company representing the newest voices within the LGBTQ+ community, and we’ve had a wonderfully positive experience with RockWater’s support in scaling our opportunities with revenue and partnerships.

Damian Pelliccione, CEO/Co-Founder

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Damian Pelliccione

Chris Rodriguez

Website

Super Studios

Super Studios is an innovative web3 creative lab founded by acclaimed crypto thought leader Elliot Wainman (@elliotrades) and his partner Dave Murray. Super Studios is building its corner of the Metaverse called The SuperVerse where its protocol ($SUPER) will be the foundation of an array of dapps. The first two dapps include the sophisticated NFT marketplace Gigamart (shipping Q4 ‘22) and the Play-And-Earn game Impostors (www.impostors.gg). Impostors recently saw its genesis drop sell out in 10 seconds generating over $100M in primary and secondary sales.

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Jason Ziemianski

Website

CASHDROP

CASHDROP, launched in January 2020, is a cloud POS Company with a twist on the economic model. Merchants access full capabilities of the app for free, and CASHDROP charges the merchant’s end customer a 5% convenience fee. It aligns CASHDROP to remove as much friction as possible for the merchant, since they only make money when the merchant does.

CASHDROP has tapped RockWater numerous times to advise on its fundraising and M&A activities.

The crew at RockWater are some of the most competent people I’ve ever worked with, and can parachute into a new project with lightning speed. They are always the first advisor I call, when I want to do something BIG

Benjamin Vear, President and Member of the Board

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Benjamin Vear

Website

EffinFunny

EffinFunny is a full-service creative production company that makes award winning content targeted at the growing US born South Asian demographic. Their team has developed, created, and produced content for Comedy Central, FX, TBS, Red Hour, and ABC digital.

The company’s leadership tapped RockWater to research whitespace opportunities and develop the go-to-market plan to drive new revenues and grow enterprise value.

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Sandeep Parikh

Anand Shah

Website

Mattson

RockWater is an active collaborator with Mattson, a global food and CPG innovator behind brands like Popchips, Blue Bottle Cold Brew, White Castle, and Yogurtland. Together, RockWater and Mattson are bringing unique food & beverage commerce solutions to traditional and digital media partners ranging from publishers and celebrities to sports / esports leagues and franchises.

Chris and his team are not just collaborators, they’re visionaries. They see opportunities for clients that they don’t see themselves. We have ideated with RockWater, and think of them as a group of creatives, as well as strategists.

Barb Stuckey, President & Chief Innovation Officer

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Barb Stuckey

Katie Hagan

Website

Collabspace

The company’s leadership engaged RockWater to help them develop fundraising strategies and M&A opportunities.

Collabspace is a mobile-first platform for Creators and Creative Freelancers to connect and transact for paid creative gigs and collab opportunities. Their unique platform solution makes these creator economy collabs as seamless as possible — facilitating quick discovery, assessment, communication, management, and payment for creator partners. Collabspace was built by a team of founders and engineers with extensive creator economy, product, and engineering experience, and is the result of over 25,000 engineering hours.

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Dan McKenzie

Website

FAO Schwarz

FAO Schwarz is the world’s most renowned specialty kids toy manufacturer and retailer. Since being founded over 160 years ago, the company has transformed into an omnichannel brand across brick & mortar, wholesale, and web and social commerce. The company is owned by ThreeSixty Group, which owns and operates 5+ global consumer brands including Vornado and Sharper Image.

To plan FAO’s digital transformation, we needed an expert team who understood how parents and kids are spending their time and money online, which is powering new direct-to-consumer business models for toy retailers. RockWater was a great bolt-on partner to us and facilitated outlining an exciting new growth strategy for FAO Schwarz.

Jan-Eric Kloth, President, International Sales, Retail, & Corporate Strategy at ThreeSixty Group

Who to know

Jan-Eric Kloth

Website