Photo credit: Whalar Group

Whalar Group recently announced a strategic investment from Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, e-commerce giant Shopify, and Hollywood producer Neal H. Moritz, valuing the company at approximately $400 million. This investment brings together influential figures from technology, commerce, and entertainment to back Whalar’s mission of building infrastructure for digital creators.

Neil Waller has a pragmatic view of the major investment his company just secured. For the co-founder and co-CEO of Whalar Group, the figure that has industry insiders talking represents something far more important than a financial milestone—it shows a clear shift in how established business leaders perceive the creator economy.

“Speaking honestly, it doesn’t represent a whole lot. We’ve never been driven by things like that,” Neil explains about the valuation. “When you look at the breadth of our business, our revenue, and everything like that, we probably could have sought a much higher valuation had we wanted to, but it wasn’t a round that was done to raise a specific amount of money to achieve a specific valuation.”

Founded in 2016, Whalar Group has built a creator ecosystem spanning talent management, brand partnerships, product incubation, and physical spaces for creators. The company emerged from Neil’s experiences as an e-commerce entrepreneur on Shopify, where he identified the need for professional infrastructure to help digital creators build sustainable businesses.

“It was a long time in the making of building relationships,” Neil shares about the investment process. “With Marc Benioff’s family office team, it had been a year and a half to two years of getting to know them. And it was very much something that we did as an opportunity for Marc.”

This organic approach to relationship-building characterizes how Whalar approaches partnerships. “It all came about very naturally, and then one after the other, and it was the strategic value of the partnership and the signal that it sends to the market about where the creator economy’s at,” Neil says.

What makes the Shopify connection particularly meaningful is its full-circle nature. “They were part of the inspiration for starting the business,” Neil explains. “My co-founder, James [Street], and I were e-commerce merchants on Shopify. And in 2015, we had the top-selling fashion and apparel brand on Shopify. And through winning that competition, we ended up founding Whalar.” He adds, “And then Shopify was like, ‘We’ll be a partner in The Lighthouse.’ Before we even had the building. They just loved the concept and supported it.”

Each investor brings specific strategic value aligned with Whalar Group’s vision. “Marc and what he’s built at Salesforce as a software founder, they’re in the marketing and advertising sector. It says a lot about where the creator economy is at that there would be interest,” Neil notes. 

The Shopify partnership points toward “the future of creators and commerce and creators’ abilities to build e-commerce companies,” while Hollywood producer Neal Moritz, the fifth highest-grossing producer of all time, represents how “Hollywood feels about the creator economy and creators’ ability to build valuable IP.”

How Whalar Group Plans to Implement the Investment

These strategic partners won’t simply be passive investors but active collaborators in Whalar Group’s next phase. “We’re in touch with them regularly and their teams are sharing things that are seen, making introductions, asking questions of each other,” Neil shares. “It’s not like they’re operational in the business but able to pick up the phone anytime and make an ask, and equally like I would say almost at this point weekly in communication.”

With these relationships established, Whalar Group plans to maintain its systematic approach to growth and improvement rather than dramatically changing direction. The company operates with a three-horizon planning approach that will continue to guide its strategy post-investment.

“If I think about the way that we do our roles at the company. I always say that the team is working on the 0-to-12-month journey, which is the horizon of the plans built at the beginning of the year, and executing against those. Then I work for 12 to 24 months to bridge the gap between this year and next, and explore new things. And then James comes in to figure out where the creator economy is going,” Neil explains.

This structured framework enables Whalar to leverage the expertise of its strategic partners across different horizons—from immediate execution to long-term planning. The investment will accelerate Whalar’s mission of helping creators build legitimate businesses, with a particular focus on embracing emerging technologies that can give creators an edge.

“Creators are going to embrace AI tool sets because they’re already nimble teams punching above their weight,” Neil predicts. “They don’t have legacy unions, they don’t have large workforces that might have some subconscious resistance to adopting tools. Every creator is already trying to do more every day. And so their ability to embrace all of the scale and capability that AI brings, that’s going to be super exciting to the growth of creator companies.”

Market Position and Industry Changes

When it comes to what the investment in Whalar signals about the maturity of the creator economy, Neil offers a measured assessment: “I’d say we’re like a 4 out of 10. So good progress, but a long way to go.”

This rating suggests that despite the valuation, Whalar Group sees considerable room for growth in the professionalization of the creator economy. “In the last few years, creators at the top of this would see themselves as a creator and an entrepreneur and understand that they’re business owners as well,” Neil observes. “And I don’t know that the rest of the world has caught up with that understanding.”

Looking ahead, Neil sees changes in how creators operate: “I think the next five years will be about creators truly being media and entertainment companies where the biggest thing that we’ll see in the next few years is people joining creator companies in different fields of professions that then help a creator build out a successful business and go from a solopreneur to an entrepreneur and business owner.”

These developments are occurring alongside industry consolidation, which Neil views as a natural progression in the market. “I think the reason for some of the consolidation is more driven by the fact that you’ve got lots of companies in the space that were funded by institutional investors, anything from five to 10 years ago. At the end of the day, they’re funding businesses and seeking a return,” he explains.

While some concentration among major players is expected, Neil remains optimistic about continued new ventures: “There are still plenty of companies being started every day in the creator economy as well. The nature of any market is that there’ll probably be a few big, successful players that are dominant. That’s just the natural rules of the market.”

Leveraging Investment for Creator Economy Leadership

With enhanced resources, strategic partnerships, and the recent acquisition of education and consultancy hub The Business of Creativity, Whalar Group is pushing forward, and Neil maintains his focus on the company’s long-term mission rather than the valuation itself.

“Broadly, we’re just excited to continue investing in the space, whatever way that comes to fruition, because we still just think it’s early days,” Neil shares. This perspective frames the investment as fuel for Whalar’s ongoing mission to help creators transition from content producers to business owners and entrepreneurs.

Despite the achievement, Neil’s enthusiasm stems from the industry’s potential: “It’s the most exciting time to be in this. There’s never been more opportunity.” With strategic investors who bring expertise spanning software, commerce, and entertainment, Whalar Group is positioned to help shape the next phase of the creator economy.

For Neil and his team, the $400 million valuation ultimately serves their founding mission: liberating the creative voice by providing creators with the infrastructure, credibility, and opportunities they need to build successful careers and companies as the creator economy continues to develop. 

As he puts it, “Anything that aids credibility, helps creators access funding and hire people onto their teams, and brings more legitimacy, credibility, and awareness to this industry is going to help in those ways.”