Creators on the cap table: Why equity is becoming the next evolution of creator partnerships

Over the past decade, creator marketing has evolved into one of the most effective growth levers in modern marketing. What started as somewhere to spend experimental test budget has moved firmly into the core marketing mix, and for many brands, it’s now one of the most efficient ways to drive both awareness and revenue.

But the model itself is evolving, and founders building consumer brands today need to pay attention. The next phase of the creator economy isn’t about better brand partnerships. It’s about ownership: identifying which creators deserve to be partners in building the business, not just paid collaborators within it.

For most brands, working with creators has meant simple paid partnerships: a brief, a campaign, deliverables, then onto the next. Attention is rented, and creators sit as a line item on a media plan. That model still works, and for most relationships, it always will.

What’s shifting is the role creators can play when brought in earlier, and more strategically. As co-founders, investors, or business partners, creators are shaping product, influencing go-to-market strategy, driving social commerce and, in some cases, helping define the brand itself. That’s business strategy, not marketing.

The reason is simple: creators understand audiences in a way most brands don’t. They are in constant dialogue with their communities, testing messaging in real time and seeing what resonates, what creates hesitation and what drives purchase decisions. For founders, that insight is one of the most commercially valuable inputs available: closer to a continuous focus group than a media channel. But for creators, the economics of a traditional paid partnership start to lose their appeal once they’re contributing at that level.

You can see this play out clearly in beauty, fashion and wellness. TALA, founded by Grace Beverley, has attracted institutional backing. Oner Active, co-founded by Krissy Cela, reported gross revenue of £80.8 million in 2024. Rhode, founded by Hailey Bieber, generated $212 million in net sales in the year to March 2025 before agreeing a $1 billion acquisition by e.l.f. Beauty. These are business outcomes, not marketing wins, and they happened because audience trust was paired with real product and operational discipline.

Investors are paying attention. Firms like Imaginary Ventures have been early to back creator-led and community-driven brands, recognising that built-in audience understanding can accelerate validation and reduce guesswork. It doesn’t replace the fundamentals – product still has to be good – but it does make decision-making faster and more informed from day one. For founders, the implication is straightforward: if you’re building in a category where audience understanding is a competitive moat, the question isn’t whether to work with creators, but whether to involve them deeply enough that they’re genuinely invested in the outcome.

This is most powerful when applied early, while product, positioning and go-to-market are still being shaped. But it isn’t limited to early-stage brands. Any business launching into a new category, audience or product line can benefit from bringing creators into the process at the point where decisions are still fluid. That’s also where equity, revenue share or formal advisory roles start to make sense – because they accurately reflect the role a creator is playing in the long-term development of the business.

It’s worth being honest about the trade-offs. Equity is a long-term commitment, and not every creator who performs well in a campaign should end up on a cap table. Audiences shift, creators move on, and governance can get complicated when the relationship doesn’t go as planned. The brands getting this right are selective, reserving equity for creators with sustained influence in a specific category and a genuine appetite for building, not just promoting.

Most creator relationships will continue to operate on a campaign basis, and most creators won’t be involved at this level of strategic input. But in the cases where creators are actively helping shape demand rather than just capture it, the role they play is fundamentally different. They’re no longer influencing how brands show up. They’re influencing what gets built, how it’s positioned and whether it resonates.

The brands that win the next decade won’t just brief creators. They’ll build with them.