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AIPROPX ReportForbes · 2h ago
How London’s Electrify Rolls Up YouTube Channels Turning Creators Into Cash Cows
Despite billions in revenues, most influencers and their popular channels carry too much “key-person” risk for institutional investors. This UK firm has figured out how to turn viral videos into evergreen products. Co -CEOs Ian Shepherd and Owen Maher think they’ve found an answer to the problem that’s long kept institutional investors wary of acquiring brands in the $250 billion creator economy: turning volatile personality-driven brands into sustainable media businesses. Their startup, London-based Electrify Video Partners, buys majority equity stakes in established independent YouTube channels which it calls creator-founder knowledge brands. It then provides capital and operational support to scale them. The company has grown rapidly since its 2021 founding, adding at least nine flagship YouTube channels to its portfolio. Its largest media property, Veritasium, whose channel posts science oriented videos like “How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet” boasts 21 million subscribers and over four billion views.
According to PitchBook, The company has attracted roughly $185 million from private equity firms including London’s Capital D and New York City’s Equable Capital and MEP Capital, on the bet that these brands can have a life beyond their original creators. While advertisers keep flocking to influencers— Forbes’ top 50 creators earned a collective $1 billion in 2026—investors worry that these brands are too dependent on the personality in front of the camera. Maher and Shepherd think the solution lies in less flashy categories of channels and building well-staffed production and development teams.
Electrify seeks out Youtube channels that are established leaders in a certain niche, be it coding, aviation or Lego. They are particularly drawn to brands that produce videos that “inform and inspire.” In other words, mini documentaries tailor-made for Millennials and Generation Z who are curious but have short attention spans.
“There's lots of viral trend-led sugar rush type content and we really want to focus on thoughtful informative content that has a positive place in the world,” says Shepherd, who believes the documentary-oriented channels it backs have an “evergreen” value that’s more stable than news or viral content.
“A video about Pluto or about black holes is just as relevant in five years as it is today,” says Shepherd. Electrify’s goals are high. Board chairman and former YouTube exec Timothy Shey sees the video channel roll up as the Condé Nast of the creator economy, where every brand in the portfolio is somebody’s favorite.
“Institutional investors are starting to really quickly wake up to this,” insists Shey.
T he spark that created Electrify occurred around 2016, when Shepherd, who headed business development at Disney, saw the media industry shift in real time. Shepherd was charged with building out Disney’s YouTube-based multi-channel network, Maker Studios, and saw that young people, including Shepherd’s then eight-year-old daughter, were turning away from traditional television programming.
“She really wanted to watch our YouTube creators and not the Disney shows that the TV channels were producing,” says Shepherd.
After Shepherd left Disney in 2018, he launched a startup called The Social Store, aimed at helping the U.K.’s biggest YouTubers build franchises, host events and sell products. Then in 2021, he got a LinkedIn message from Maher and Justin Reizes, the other founders of Electrify.
Maher and Reizes were longtime investors who had worked together at KKR and structured investments in some media assets, but none tied to the creator economy. Maher had seen that “eyeballs and advertising dollars following those eyeballs” were shifting toward digital media. The pair identified Shepherd as someone who had expertise and connections in the creator space, and reached out. On August 18, 2021, the trio teamed up to start Electrify.
E lectrify’s biggest acquisition to date is Veritasium, a YouTube channel with 21 million subscribers created in 2010 by Derek Muller, an Australian-born PhD in Physics Education Research. Veritasium takes niche science topics like material science and particle physics and presents them with the production value and storytelling of a network documentary. Think a deep-dive into aerogel, the world’s lightest solid, with 60 million views, and a related 12 minute video “I Waterproofed Myself With Aerogel!” or a 30-minute documentary about why it is almost impossible to make blue LEDs.
In late 2025, two years after the acquisition, Veritasium’s Muller posted a video announcing the partnership, which according to U.K, disclosures gave Electrify 80% ownership. In it, he said he was attracted to this arrangement, thinking it would allow him to step away from some of the operational responsibilities of running a major YouTube brand.
“I never wanted to deal with hiring, and taxes, and all that stuff,” said Muller, 43. “I just wanted to make videos.”
He also noted that since the 2023 investment, subscriber counts had increased and the channel was able to make more ambitious, longer-form content, due to Electrify’s funding and commitment to scale production.
Veritasium’s payroll has grown eight-fold—from four to 34—since it was acquired in 2023. Electrify also scouts new revenue sources for their brands beyond the sponsorship deals and programmatic advertising that typically drive YouTube earnings. Veritasium released a tabletop game called Elements of Truth in 2025 that did over $1 million in sales on Kickstarter in the first week.
In his video, Muller also announced that he would spend more time away from the channel, and may appear less, or not at all, in future videos. Separating the creator from the channel addresses investors’ biggest concern: key-person risk, or the worry that the success of the brand is too tied to one individual. This concern could explain why investors have been hesitant to buy existing brands in the crea...
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