The data behind this list comes from Dakota Marketplace, the global private markets intelligence platform used by thousands of investment professionals to research LPs, GPs, and private companies. Built by fundraisers for fundraisers, Dakota Marketplace delivers complete, accurate, and daily-updated intelligence across every allocator channel, from family offices and RIAs to sovereign wealth funds and public pensions. Learn More | Book a Demo
Celebrity-led consumer brands have crossed an institutional threshold. Rhode's $1bn sale to e.l.f. Beauty set a new benchmark for the category, and seven additional brands cleared $63m with named institutional buyers in the trailing year. The cohort now spans clean beauty, RTD spirits, apparel, sports IP, creator media, and personalized nutrition, a category mix that did not exist as institutional deal flow five years ago.
Two patterns explain the institutional turn. Imaginary Ventures is the most active dedicated institutional backer of celebrity-led brands, anchoring the growth-stage cohort with positions across multiple categories. On the buyer side, e.l.f. Beauty, Mark Anthony Brands, Herbalife, Apollo Global Management, BOLT Ventures, and BDT & MSD Partners have all priced against the band, giving the category a set of reference exits that did not exist before 2025. For fund managers tracking the cohort, Dakota's portfolio company database maps the deal activity in detail.
The brands below are ranked by disclosed dollar value, drawn from Dakota Marketplace transaction data. The full dataset is published in Dakota's Global Consumer Deal Trends 2026 report.
Top Celebrity-Led Consumer Brands
1. Rhode
$1bn | e.l.f. Beauty (strategic) | May 2025
The reference exit for the celebrity-led category. Hailey Bieber's clean beauty brand sold to e.l.f. Beauty in a $1bn strategic acquisition, the largest celebrity-led consumer exit in the dataset. The transaction validated the category for strategic acquirers and set the pricing benchmark every subsequent celebrity-led deal has been measured against.
Founder/Backer: Hailey Bieber | Category: Clean beauty
2. The Finnish Long Drink
$325m | Mark Anthony Brands | April 2026
The RTD spirits brand co-founded by Bill Murray and Miika Lipiäinen sold to Mark Anthony Brands at $325m. The transaction sits inside the report's functional beverage triangle (Poppi, Long Drink, Bioniq) and gives Mark Anthony its second consumer-celebrity reference deal after the strategic showed it will price against the band.
Founder/Backer: Bill Murray, Miika Lipiäinen et al. | Category: RTD spirits
3. Skims
$225m | GS Alts + BDT & MSD | November 2025
Kim Kardashian's shapewear and apparel brand raised $225m in a round co-led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives and BDT & MSD Partners. The deal sits at the intersection of celebrity-led consumer and family office capital, with BDT & MSD's involvement representing one of the year's most-watched family office consumer commitments.
Founder/Backer: Kim Kardashian | Category: Apparel / shapewear
4. Pickleball, Inc.
$225m | Apollo Global Management | May 2026
Pickleball Inc. raised $225m in minority growth capital from Apollo Global Management. Apollo led every consumer deal it participated in during the trailing year. The transaction validated celebrity-adjacent sports IP as a deal category for institutional growth capital, and Pickleball Inc. is one of the most discussed sports IP deals of the year.
Founder/Backer: SC Holdings + investors | Category: Sports IP
5. MrBeast
$200m | Minority round | January 2026
Jimmy Donaldson's creator and media business raised $200m in a minority round in January 2026. The transaction is one of the largest creator-led capital raises in the dataset and signals that institutional capital sees creator-led media businesses as a distinct deal category alongside celebrity-led consumer brands.
Founder/Backer: Jimmy Donaldson | Category: Creator / media
6. Bioniq
$150m | Herbalife (strategic) | March 2026
The Heidi Klum-endorsed personalized nutrition brand sold to Herbalife at up to $150m. The deal is one of three named functional nutrition transactions in the report (Poppi, Long Drink, Bioniq) and gives Herbalife a celebrity-led entry point into the personalized nutrition category.
Founder/Backer: Heidi Klum-endorsed | Category: Personalized nutrition
7. Kings League
$63m | BOLT + Kosmos | February 2026
Gerard Piqué's 7-a-side football league raised $63m in a round co-led by BOLT Ventures and Kosmos. The transaction is the smallest priced deal in the institutional cohort but signals institutional buy-in to non-traditional football formats and sits inside BOLT's multi-discipline sports IP roll-up.
Founder/Backer: Gerard Piqué / Kosmos | Category: Sports IP / football
8. BERO and Unión Deportiva Almería
Undisclosed | Imaginary Ventures
Two additional celebrity-led brands backed by Imaginary Ventures in the trailing year, both at undisclosed values. BERO is Tom Holland's non-alcoholic beverage brand. Unión Deportiva Almería is the Spanish football club associated with Cristiano Ronaldo. Both deals reflect Imaginary's position as the most active dedicated institutional backer of celebrity-led consumer brands.
Founder/Backers: Tom Holland (BERO); Cristiano Ronaldo (Unión Deportiva Almería) | Categories: Non-alcoholic beverage; football
Track every celebrity-led consumer deal as it closes. Dakota Marketplace's portfolio company database gives you named buyers, sellers, deal values, and announcement dates in one place. Book a demo.
What This Tells Fund Managers
Three points stand out from the celebrity-led institutional cohort.
The buyer side has named players, not one-off acquirers. e.l.f., Mark Anthony, Herbalife, Apollo, BOLT, and BDT & MSD have all priced against the band. The buyer universe is repeat, not single-deal, which gives the category a set of reference comparables every new deal can be measured against.
Imaginary Ventures is the dedicated institutional backer. Of the named institutional backers in the cohort, only Imaginary Ventures has a documented pattern of multiple celebrity-led positions (Rhode, BERO, Unión Deportiva Almería, and others not named in the report). For fund managers and brand founders, the firm is the closest thing the category has to a consumer specialist.
The pipeline is queued behind the trailing-year exits. The report names additional Imaginary-backed launches and Reale Actives as queued positions inside the cohort. The category will produce additional reference exits in the next twelve to eighteen months, priced against the Rhode and Long Drink band.
Start Sourcing Celebrity-Led Consumer Deals With Better Intelligence
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