From Dragons’ Den to Disney ambitions: Steven Bartlett raises eight-figure round for Steven.com

Podcast character and business owner Steven Bartlett today revealed his firm Steven.com has actually shut a significant eight-figure financial investment, at a EUR365 million appraisal to construct what he calls the “ Disney of the designer economic climate” and take his expanding media realm to a worldwide phase.

The financial investment was led by financiers Slow Ventures and Apeiron Financial Investment Team. This is thought to be Europe’s greatest ever before designer holding firm fundraising round.

Bartlett, that is additionally the designer and host of Journal Of A CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER (DOAC), stated: “ By combining designer IP, funding and our framework, Steven.com is placing itself to lead in the following period of the designer economic climate. My best passion is to construct the Disney of the designer economic climate– and the tactical companions this financing round has actually employed has actually allowed me to take a huge action in that instructions“

The financing round for Steven.com stands for an extraordinary range compared to various other European creator-economy and media-infrastructure financings reported by EU-Startups in 2025.

While current statements such as Wyrld (Germany) (EUR1 million pre-Seed for creator-led ecommerce), Assisterr (UK) (EUR2.4 million for no-code AI-agent production), Paid (UK) (EUR10 million to power the AI-agent economic climate) and Camera Intelligence (UK) (EUR1.7 million for AI-enabled designer equipment) concentrate on early-stage advancement, Bartlett’s eight-figure raising at a EUR365 million appraisal signals an approach debt consolidation and range.

As opposed to these smaller sized rounds, Steven.com’s financial investment highlights the development of elder, up and down incorporated creator-media firms in Europe, specifically in the UK– placing it as a possible support company in the continent’s progressing creator-economy landscape.

“ For the last century, firms like Disney– from its beginning factor with Walt Disney himself– has showed the power of a solitary item of copyright. He and his followers developed a worldwide realm by taking a personality like Mickey Computer mouse and constructing a cosmos around him: movies, amusement park, product and even more. This developed a flywheel of tremendous, intensifying worth which caused a generational firm.

” With my group, I assume we are constructing the contemporary variation of this design. Yet in our globe, the IP is not an imaginary personality. The designer is the brand-new franchise business. Our goal is to construct the specifying firm of the designer economic climate by building an environment that ranges a maker’s impact throughout 2 core columns: designer media and designer endeavors, while powering this flywheel with our exclusive designer innovation,” included Bartlett

EU-Startups has actually included Steven Bartlett and his endeavors numerous times over current years. In January 2023, we reported on the launch of his $100 million Trip Tale Fund to sustain European start-ups. Later on, in March 2023, Bartlett and his fund were referenced as financiers in London-based healthtech ZOE. His name showed up once again in November 2024 in a write-up profiling his previous organization companion’s brand-new advertising and marketing start-up, cocreatd.

In 2025, Bartlett’s impact in the creator-economy area was recognized two times a lot more: initially in January 2025, where his Journal of a CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER network was noted amongst the “25 must-follow YouTube networks for start-ups and business owners,” and later on in June 2025, that included him in a summary of leading organization voices on TikTok.

Megan Lightcap, Companion at Slow Ventures stated: “ At Slow Ventures, we have actually long thought that developers are the following fantastic business owners– and Steven Bartlett is a premium instance. He isn’t simply among the fastest-growing and most relied on voices on the planet; he’s a thoroughly data-driven business owner whose web content, deep area, and profile of firms produce an effective flywheel that gas system-wide development. We could not be a lot more thrilled to back him via the Slow Designer Fund as he ranges Steven.com throughout media, items, and innovation“

This brand-new financing will certainly increase Bartlett’s goal to encourage designer media firms and designer endeavors to range worldwide and establish first-rate designer IP and designer business eco-systems. The financial investment additionally allows Bartlett and his firm– integrating well established departments FlightStory, FlightCast and FlightFund– to preserve complete freedom, with Bartlett holding bulk possession of greater than 90%.

Christian Angermayer — Apeiron Financial investment Team– stated: “I have actually recognized Steven for numerous years currently, and he is among the brightest visionary business owners I have actually ever before collaborated with– a real and unusual possession to British entrepreneurship. Him and his top quality administration group are constructing the framework to change specific developers right into institutional-grade companies via an incorporated environment of media, endeavors, and innovation.

” We are backing the firm that will certainly specify the designer economic climate by confirming that the person, effectively capitalised and sustained, can construct realms that measure up to the home entertainment corporations of the last century. Europe requires to take the designer economic climate really seriously and we require a lot more systems like Steven.com to construct their realms right below in Europe.“

With the designer economic climate predicted to get to greater than $528 billion by 2030 and greater than 207 million energetic developers worldwide, Steven.com is placed to harness this energy by incorporating financial investment, media proficiency and innovation framework under one roof covering.

Bartlett currently collaborates with noticeable designer skill via his media department, FlightStory. This consists of Trevor Noah, Davina McCall, and Paul C. Brunson. The firm obtains, ranges and develops industrial framework around leading designer media IP, whilst buying and breeding designer endeavors.

Bartlett has actually additionally developed a collection of public and exclusive devices that utilize designer target market information to get rid of uncertainty from approach and development choices on designer IP. Previously this month he revealed the general public launch of one such device called FlightCast.com— the globe’s very first podcast organizing system developed for video clip, with inbuilt AI and screening abilities.

DOAC– which he developed and additionally offers via FlightStory– is currently the globe’s 2nd greatest meeting podcast with greater than 13 million YouTube customers and 70 million month-to-month views/downloads. It had actually accomplished greater than one billion streams throughout all systems by late 2024 and this month (Oct 2025) it exceeded one billion sights on YouTube alone. It additionally continues to be the No1 Podcast in the UK and Europe and is presently including 600K brand-new YouTube customers monthly– making it the fastest expanding program in the globe– with a 500% substance yearly development price.

Previous visitors consist of Michelle Obama, MrBeast, Matthew McConaughey, Louis Tomlinson, Simon Cowell, Boris Johnson and, most lately, previous Liverpool FC supervisor Jurgen Klopp.

Bartlett has actually purchased greater than 40 firms, consisting of SpaceX, Whoop, Lovable, Replit, MrBeast, Tempo, Groq, and PerfectTed. This month PerfectTed additionally came to be Dragon’s Den’s most effective ever before financial investment with the firm currently being valued at greater than $190 million much less than 3 years given that the Owners showed up on the television collection.

The article From Dragons’ Den to Disney ambitions: Steven Bartlett raises eight-figure round for Steven.com showed up initially on EU-Startups.