Caspar Lee on turning online fame into a £100m business

Caspar Lee has lived through the entire digital life cycle. A social media influencer turned entrepreneur and investor, he has built a career at the intersection of content, community and technology.

Growing up in South Africa, Lee launched a YouTube channel that made him one of the platform’s early breakout stars. Between 2013 and 2017, he amassed a following of more than 6 million people by figuring out how to grow a personal brand while still in his teens.

Rather than relying on a single standout talent, Lee focused on consistency and collaboration. He posted regularly, added value to existing conversation and leveraged partnerships with other creators – and later mainstream celebrities – including Ed Sheeran and Dwayne Johnson, attending events such as media junkets along the way.

“I didn't necessarily have this massive talent, [like being] really good at singing,” Lee recalls. "It was more that I figured out growth hacks by collaborating with other YouTubers. Being part of a community that was really growing together [helped]." 

He later transitioned from influencer to entrepreneur, co-founding Influencer.com, a social media marketing agency designed to professionalise what he descrbies as the "cowboy-ish" world of influencer marketing. The aim was to bring structure and accountability to brand deals, creating a B2B agency where companies could clearly see a return on investment when working with creators. Today, the group employees more than 180 people and has generated revenues of close to £100m.

Ben Jeffries serves as CEO, overseeing the day-to-day operations, while Lee acts as chief vision officer, focusing on long-term strategy.

Lee has since gone on to launch Creator Ventures, a venture capital fund backing consumer internet start-ups. The fund typically invests at seed or pre-seed stage and favours technical founders who can build and iterate with minimal external support.

The team places as much emphasis on founders’ personal qualities as on their ideas. “You're investing in the founder,” says Lee. "If they haven't got the model quite right, they can pivot, copy and eventually [they] will find the right model.”

The fund’s portfolio includes Wild Deodorant, Beehiiv and Dash Drinks.

As his career has evolved, Lee has accumulated a number of hard-won business lessons, which he shared with Sir Richard Harpin on the Business Leader Podcast.

Among them is a warning that hiring big company veterans can backfire when scaling a mid-sized business. Many, he believes, lack the ability to think on their feet or operate effectively without established processes and deep resources.

He has also learned the power of partnerships in driving organic growth, particularly when building communities, both online and in the real world.