Whalar began in 2016 as a marketplace that helped brands find, commission and measure work from online creators. Neil Waller and James Street turned that product into a global agency that plans and runs large creator-marketing programmes, then built a wider group around talent management, manager software, creator campuses, venture building and education.[2][3][5][10][11]
Influencer marketing was the largest activity category in the group's latest consolidated accounts, while the newer businesses served creators and the companies around them. Accenture's June 2026 agreement to acquire the Whalar agency for Accenture Song is the latest structural change. If it closes, the brand-facing agency would move to Accenture while the founders would continue operating the five creator-side businesses named in the announcement.[1][19]
The transaction remained publicly pending at the research cut-off. Accenture described Whalar as a recently announced acquisition in its June investor call, and Whalar's current homepage still says Accenture Song is set to acquire the agency.[1][12][13]
From a matching product to a global agency
Waller and Street launched Whalar in March 2016 after building earlier internet businesses together. A Shopify entrepreneurship competition had taken them to a business summit on Necker Island, and their new company addressed a problem they had encountered from the brand side: finding online creators who suited a product, commissioning work from them and understanding what the resulting content achieved.[2][3]
The original Whalar looked more like a technology-enabled marketplace than the full-service agency it later became. A 2017 profile described a London-based, 15-person company with a search algorithm for matching brands to Instagram creators. Brands could find and commission creators at scale, then measure a campaign's performance. Pepsi, Warner Bros., Deliveroo and Propercorn were among the customers named at the time, and the founders were preparing to expand into the United States.[2]
Whalar's current offer is materially broader than that early marketplace. It now sells creator and community research, campaign strategy, sourcing and vetting, contracting and payment, production, paid amplification, brand and sales-lift studies, and multi-market execution. By 2026, Whalar was taking responsibility for the creative, commercial and logistical work of a full creator programme rather than supplying only matching and measurement tools.[2][10]
Building a business around both sides of the market
Whalar's first announced acquisition moved it beyond serving brands. In May 2022 it bought C Talent, a talent-management and consultancy company. The transaction gave Whalar a direct role representing creators, rather than only recruiting them for brand campaigns. It also set the direction for a group that would eventually serve creators as businesses with needs extending beyond a single sponsorship.[4]
The talent operation took its present form in October 2024, when Sixteenth joined Whalar Group and combined with Whalar Talent under the Sixteenth name. Sixteenth says the combined company now manages more than 300 creators with a total audience above 30 million. Its role spans career and commercial management, developing partnerships, negotiating work and helping creators build businesses beyond sponsorships.[5]
The Lighthouse pursued the same goal through physical infrastructure. Its first campus opened in Venice, California, in 2024, followed by Brooklyn in 2025. The sites combine workspace, production studios, theatres, event areas and programming for creators and their teams. They operate through paid office and membership tiers, while partnerships give brands and media companies another way to work with the community. Fox invested in The Lighthouse in 2025 and linked the relationship to creator-led entertainment and brand integrations.[8][15]
Whalar Group also built products that do not depend on campaign fees. Foam supplies software to talent managers, including authenticated social data and tools for pitching and workflow. Its core product uses a free model with optional paid features. Moby Ventures develops products and brands with creators.[14][16]
Together, the businesses express a shift in whom the group serves. The original agency helped brands reach creators and their audiences. Sixteenth, Foam and The Lighthouse address the work required to build a creator's career, team and production operation. Moby extends that logic into venture building. Waller has described the proposed separation in similar terms: if the transaction closes, the agency would continue its brand-facing work under Accenture Song, while the retained group would concentrate on infrastructure and companies built around creators.[1][20]
Education became a more visible line in May 2025, when Whalar Group acquired The Business of Creativity in a deal Business Insider reported at $20 million. The company provides education and consultancy around creativity and commercial growth.[9][17]
Whalar Group brought in outside investors that same month. Shopify, Marc Benioff and producer Neal H. Moritz invested in the company. The amount was not announced, but Bloomberg reported that the transaction valued the group at $400 million. That figure applied to Whalar Group at the time of the investment. It was not the later price Accenture agreed to pay for the agency, which has not been disclosed.[6][7][1]
How Whalar makes money
The agency earns fees from brands for strategy and campaign execution. It plans creator programmes, finds and contracts talent, manages production, runs paid amplification and measures the result. This is a managed service business, rather than the matching product described in 2017.[2][10]
Talent management supplies a second service revenue stream through commercial work performed for represented creators. The newer businesses add other models: The Lighthouse charges annual memberships and monthly office fees, Foam offers its main manager software free with optional paid functions, and The Business of Creativity provides education and consultancy. Moby develops products and brands with creators.[5][14][15][16][17]
Influencer marketing accounted for 74.7 percent of consolidated turnover, making it the group's largest activity category in 2024. These figures cover the consolidated reporting group and are not a standalone income statement for the agency Accenture has agreed to acquire.[19]
The Accenture agreement would divide the businesses
Whalar enters the proposed transaction as a scaled agency rather than the matching startup described in 2017. Accenture says the agency has run tens of thousands of creator collaborations across more than 40 countries and 15 languages. The buyer says the agency has more than 170 employees across the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany and Spain.[1]
The agency's value to Accenture Song is its specialist position inside a broader marketing system. Whalar can identify and work with creators, produce the campaign, run paid amplification and measure the outcome. Accenture Song already sells strategy, creative, technology, commerce and marketing services to large companies. If the acquisition closes, creator marketing would become a larger in-house capability within that offer, and Whalar would gain access to Accenture's global client base and operating scale.[1][10]
Harman and Cronk are expected to keep leading Whalar following completion. They and the agency's employees would join Accenture Song, while Waller and Street would continue running Whalar Group. The announced terms therefore separate operating leadership as well as assets: the executives who run the agency would go with it, and the founders would retain the group they built around creators.[1][18]
The founders would retain a working connection to the agency. Accenture and Whalar Group announced a three-year strategic partnership that would give Accenture Song access to the wider group and focus on creator-economy innovation. The arrangement could preserve practical links between brand campaigns and creator-facing businesses while placing them under separate ownership. Its operating scope will become clearer only after completion.[1]
For Accenture, the transaction offers a mature creator-marketing capability that can be sold through a much larger organisation. For Waller and Street, it would exchange the group's principal brand-services business for a more focused portfolio of creator infrastructure. Influencer marketing generated most of the latest audited group's turnover, although the accounts are not a carve-out for the agency being sold. The retained company would therefore begin its next phase with a different economic shape.[1][19][20]
Whalar's first decade turned a matching product into a global agency and then used the resulting relationships to build a wider creator group. The proposed sale would reverse that bundling. If it closes, each side would face a new test: whether Whalar can become a major creator capability within Accenture Song, and whether the retained Whalar Group can turn creator access into durable software, spaces, services and creator businesses without the agency that originally connected it to brand budgets.