Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya's early investment of $45 million in Beast Industries is back in the spotlight as it scales into a $5 billion empire, with fresh capital and renewed ambitions in media, finance and digital platforms. Founded by Jimmy Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast on YouTube, the company has received a $200 million in funding from Bitmine Immersion Technologies, one of the leading Ethereum treasury firms.
According to CNBC, the investment by Bitmine is aimed at backing a digital outlet with over 450 million subscribers and attracting more than 5 billion monthly views. The deal closes on or about Jan. 19.
Chamath Palihapitiya's Early Investment
Chamath Palihapitiya, the former senior executive at Facebook known for his bold contrarian plays, had quietly backed MrBeast with a $45 million investment a few years ago. The capital played a key role in helping to consolidate Donaldson's ventures — YouTube, Feastables, merchandise and philanthropy — into a single holding company, Beast Industries.
It further mirrored Palihapitiya's proposition on creator-led ventures emerging as scalable platforms and not just entertainment brands.
"I haven't really talked about this, but about five years ago, I invested $45M in a Series A that created Beast Industries by bringing together all of Jimmy's various business interests under one umbrella," Palihapitiya shared in a post on X.
The Sri Lankan-born Canadian-American venture capitalist said that creating this company allowed him to "streamline our capital allocation and double down on the big long-term opportunities like financial services, telecoms, a creator marketplace, etc."
Palihapitiya hailed MrBeast and said the world's biggest YouTuber has come a long way over the past five years, while the "business is just starting to get going."
"I'm very excited for him to have a chance to achieve his ambition. He's a very special entrepreneur," he added.
The consolidation of these successful but fragmented businesses was necessary, since this risked inefficiency and missed opportunities for cross-promotion.
Some of these include MrBeast's YouTube empire, with over 461 million subscribers, snack brand Feastables, MrBeast Burger and philanthropy projects.
MrBeast's Long-Term Ambitions Back In Focus
Bitmine Immersion Technologies announced its $200 million investment in Beast Industries on Jan. 15, representing one of the firm's largest non-core equity investments so far, according to the digital financial media outlet The Street.
MrBeast announced the plan of developing a financial services platform during The New York Times DealBook Summit in December 2025.
As part of the latest partnership, Beast Industries and BitMine will explore the potential integration of decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions into their upcoming platform, the company's CEO Jeffrey Housenbold said.
So far, no details have been provided regarding the platform's design, launch timeline and regulatory framework.
“MrBeast and Beast Industries, in our view, is the leading content creator of our generation, with a reach and engagement unmatched with GenZ, GenAlpha and Millennials," The Street quoted Tom Lee, Co-Founder and Head of Research of Fundstrat, as saying.
Why It Matters
Beast Industries has positioned itself as a next-generation entertainment conglomerate, hinting at DeFi and fintech products.
This investment could further help the company evolve into a creator-driven platform ecosystem — apps, marketplaces, as well as financial services.
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