- MrBeast has acquired a startup called Vouch, which aids creators in hiring and job postings.
- Vouch, founded by an ex-Cameo staffer, lists job openings for influencers and YouTubers.
- Vouch uses AI for job matching and was backed by VCs like Seven Seven Six and other investors.
YouTube’s top creator, MrBeast, has expanded his estimated $700 million a year business empire by acquiring the startup Vouch.
Vouch, founded by former Cameo employee Marty Pesis, is a platform that helps creators build their own hiring sites and post job openings.
Similar to LinkedIn, the platform lets candidates create profiles to showcase their skills and list creators they’ve previously worked with. A creator can view the applicant’s profile page and application and direct message them within the app.
“Creators really are much more like traditional businesses these days,” Pesis said. “We found that creators that had ops people in seat were able to move a lot quicker and have a lot more effective hiring initiatives. So we often push our partners to start with that role if they didn’t have it.”
With 318 million subscribers, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has a sprawling internal team. He also runs several business ventures, including merchandise and products.
An internal guide to succeeding on YouTube and at Donaldson’s company was recently leaked. Business Insider verified the guide with former staffers. (You can read the guide here.)
Donaldson’s team plans to use Vouch for his internal hiring efforts, the company said. In addition to Donaldson, creators including Yes Theory, Jesser, Stokes Twins, Safiya Nygaard, Danny Duncan, and AMP have all used Vouch to post job openings.
Vouch’s features include an AI-powered recommendation engine to match candidates with creators, a tool for creators to launch custom-targeted job posts, and careers pages and job boards for creators to showcase their teams.
Vouch is one of a handful of startups looking to help connect workers in the growing creator economy, which Goldman Sachs analysts estimated could reach $480 billion by 2027. Competing creator-focused job sites that offer similar tools and functionality to Vouch include YTjobs, yt.careers, and CreatorEconomyJobs.
“We couldn’t do what we do without our incredible team, and we’re always looking for ways to improve our candidate experience,” Kara McCloud, head of talent at MrBeast, said in an email. “Adding Vouch to the mix allows us to further support the team and enhance the hiring process in a way the industry has never seen.”
Pesis joined as the fifth employee at Cameo, where he spent time scaling its marketing and B2B efforts. At Cameo, Pesis worked closely with creators and learned from them how hard it was to find and hire talent, he said. Pesis brought on Patrick Dudek, also a former Cameo employee, to the Vouch team to help scale the platform.
“Hiring and building great teams is not just about getting introduced to the right talent,” Pesis said. “It really is about having a sound recruiting and hiring process, and then also making sure that you’re retaining top talent. I actually think these video editor roles in the YouTube world are a lot more than just video editors. People oftentimes are looking for what Hayden Hillier-Smith calls a ‘mini creator.’ These editors are multi-talented, and they are often helping craft the storyline.”
Vouch was backed by Seven Seven Six, Liquid 2 Ventures, Shrug Capital, Niche Capital, WorkPlay Ventures, and angel investors including Andreas Klinger and Siqi Chen. The acquisition amount wasn’t disclosed.
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