Dude Perfect just scored a big investment

Trick shot economy

The content creators behind Dude Perfect — a wildly popular YouTube channel built on insane basketball shots and water bottle flip videos — have set their sights on expanding beyond the video-sharing platform… and they’ve just secured $100m+ to do so.

The 5 friends, who started the channel in college back in 2009, are planning to pump the nine-figure investment from private equity firm Highmount Capital into boosting their content output, creating more live experiences, and furthering their foray into consumer products, according to an interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

So far, the DP channel has racked up over 17 billion views, according to social metrics tracker Social Blade, with videos like Real Life Trick Shots 2 and Ping Pong Trick Shots 3 getting over 320 million views each.

As the audiences of online megastars grow from millions to tens of millions, investors seem increasingly open to injecting cash into projects by content creators from YouTube, TikTok, and other social platforms — capital that used to be reserved for more traditional media.

Another YouTuber, MrBeast, is perhaps the best example. He had a brief dalliance with the world of venture capital in 2021 when he sought to raise $150m at a $1.5bn valuation. While that deal never came to fruition, he has since teamed up with Amazon Prime to work on the “biggest game show ever”, with the creator reportedly offered $100m to develop and front the concept.