<\/p>\n
\n\tDolphin Entertainment<\/a> has teamed with online capital raising platform DealMaker<\/a> in an effort to rev up financing alternatives for celebrity-led consumer and lifestyle brands. <\/p>\n \n\tThe pact calls for Dolphin to work with New York-based DealMaker to develop products and ideas that need financing to get off the ground. Dolphin CEO Bill O\u2019Dowd launched his marketing firm in 1996 with the goal of harnessing the power of celebrity and cultural influence to drive business in sectors beyond entertainment, including lifestyle and consumer products.<\/p>\n \n\tDealMaker offers creators and others a ready-made infrastructure to sell Securities and Exchange Commission-compliant shares in their companies to the public. O\u2019Dowd says taking the public route to raising money to launch companies, versus the traditional process of hiring advisors and making the rounds of private equity firms, means that funding should happen faster for clients that are eager to maximize their heat in pop culture at a given moment.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cVenture capital is very uncertain. It could take a year or more to get funding. They beat you down on price. And it\u2019s very small number of people who get funded,\u201d O\u2019Dowd told Variety. <\/em>O\u2019Dowd sees the DealMaker platform as a way for celebrities and influencers to turn their fan communities and cultural clout into ownership stakes in companies that may have the potential to support their families for years to come.<\/p>\n \n\tThe partnership between Dolphin and DealMaker is designed to give both companies what they need: Dolphin clients need easier access to capital and DealMaker needs a steady stream of strong contenders. O\u2019Dowd points to the windfall that beauty entrepreneur and influencer Susan Yara saw last year in selling her social media-fueled brand Naturium to e.l.f. Beauty for $355 million as an example of the kind of ventures he hopes to nuture.<\/p>\n \n\tYara \u201cis a pure influencer. She built that brand with zero paid media. Zero.\u201d O\u2019Dowd said. \u201cAs we look out the next 10 years, the opportunity is launching certain types of products where influencers or celebrities typically play a role in marketing them and they may even found them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba sees great potential in partnering with Dolphin\u2019s traditional and influencer marketing firms. Dolphin over the past 10 years has assembled a collection of PR and marketing specialists including 42West, The Door, Shore Fire Media, Elle Communications, Special Projects and The Digital Dept. DealMaker launched its platform in 2018 and has since helped raise more than $2 billion across more than 900 deals.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to partner with Dolphin Entertainment to support the next generation of celebrity-backed consumer brands. Dolphin\u2019s ability to turn cultural relevance into market impact makes them an ideal partner as we expand access to capital for entertainment- and celebrity-led companies,\u201d Kacaba said.<\/p>\n \n\tO\u2019Dowd emphasizes that the key to launching the kind of brands and businesses that he envisions is moving fast to take advantage of moments.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cPR and influencer marketing today is peanut butter and jelly, right? You can\u2019t launch a restaurant, you can\u2019t open a movie, you can\u2019t launch an album if you don\u2019t have influencer marketing to go with your PR,\u201d O\u2019Dowd said. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe right mix here is not one big celebrity or one big influencer \u2014 it\u2019s 50 nano-influencers that have engagement rates of over 50%. You add them up together, they cost half the money and they get you twice as many eyeballs, and their followers are more likely to to engage,\u201d O\u2019Dowd said. \u201cIt\u2019s the way to most efficiently create the best sales tool of all \u2014 word of mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t(Pictured: Dolphin Entertainment CEO Bill O\u2019Dowd and DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dolphin Entertainment has teamed with online capital raising platform DealMaker in an effort to rev up financing alternatives for celebrity-led consumer and lifestyle brands. The pact calls for Dolphin to work with New York-based DealMaker to develop products and ideas that need financing to get off the ground. Dolphin CEO Bill O\u2019Dowd launched his marketing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2286347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[416488,442975],"class_list":["post-2286346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dealmaker","tag-dolphin-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Dolphin-Entertainment-Sets-DealMaker-Pact-for-Online-Capital-Raising.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2286346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2286348,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286346\/revisions\/2286348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2286347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2286346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2286346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2286346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}