Good morning. Outdoor Boys is back. Well…sort of.

As a final farewell, popular outdoors YouTuber Luke Nichols is returning to the platform to post three videos—on November 8, 15, and 22—before retiring for good. We’ll be savoring every minute.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Steven Bartlett, the creator behind The Diary of a CEO, just received an eight-figure investment into his Steven.com media company led by Slow Ventures and Apeiron Investment Group. Bartlett’s company now has an estimated valuation of $425 million. 

Behind the deal: Bartlett is the latest creator to receive backing from Slow’s $60 million creator fund, joining others like woodworking creator Jonathan Katz Moses and linguistics creator Marina Mogilko. 

Slow creator fund partner Megan Lightcap told us Bartlett “embodies what we see as the next generation of creator entrepreneurs.”

Chris Erwin, founder of M&A advisory firm RockWater, estimates in a LinkedIn post that the total investment sat between $10-15 million—with Slow writing a $3-5 million check and Apeiron contributing a similar or slightly larger amount. Bartlett reportedly retained over 90% ownership post-deal.

Bartlett’s Business Breakdown: Beyond The Diary of a CEO—with 13 million subscribers and over 1 billion views—Bartlett’s empire includes media, tech, and a venture arm.

Together, these form Steven.com, a holding company employing over 100 people across London, Manchester, LA, and New York. 

Slow won’t dictate how Steven.com deploys the investment, but Lightcap said the creator fund team is available as an advisor to the company.

What are investors looking for in other creators moving forward? “We want someone who self identifies as much of a founder as they do a creator,” Lightcap said. “I think that it's a little bit of a red flag if someone is like, ‘I am just a YouTuber and that's like my occupation.’”

Ever wanted to track the history of the “six-seven” trend or every video that’s ever been made about Ryan Trahan’s Penny Series? That’s the premise of Lore, an AI-powered search engine founded by newsletter writer and creator Zehra Naqvi.

This month, Naqvi announced $1.1 million in pre-seed funding for Lore led by Village Global with participation from angel investors from Snapchat, TikTok, Perplexity, and Wattpad. The Lore team includes CMO Evan Santiago (formerly of short-form media company Mad Realities) and engineer Sid Chava.

How does it work? Lore, inspired by Naqvi’s own internet rabbit holes, lets users track videos, articles, forums, and blog posts around a single topic, showing highlights in a Spotify-wrapped format.

The creator unlock: Lore offers a way for creators to find niche audiences interested in highly specific topics—making it easier to find the proverbial 1,000 true fans. 

“I think of our users as internet archaeologists because of the choices you make to uncover something.” Naqvi told us. “Focusing on Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl [album] and ending up on a PhD thesis on Hamlet—that alone is a really cool rabbit hole other people might want to fall down, and that is how we’re redefining what being a creator is.” 

So far, Lore has 115,000 on its waitlist and has amassed over 200 million views across social platforms. Lore is set to launch early 2026.

Netflix is diving deeper into the podcast space following its announcement earlier this month to add Spotify video podcasts to its content lineup. Here’s the latest →

Big picture: “This raises the stakes for every podcaster. Production values will have to increase,” creator manager Zack Honarvar said on LinkedIn. “The bar just got even higher but so have the opportunities.”

Hark, fair citizens! This is Lady Syd of House Cohen. Last night, Samir and I went to a YouTube-sponsored party celebrating the new season of Royal Court, Brittany Broski’s podcast. 

The renaissance-themed event had it all: jugglers, magicians, palm readers, and portrait artists—but above all else, I was excited to see the platform throwing such an extravagant celebration for a creator-led show. 

It feels super in line with big trends we’ve been tracking at Publish: Platforms are treating their podcasts as TV shows (see story above). This is signaling to advertisers that our industry is shifting; creators are now producers as well.

We might have been wearing medieval garb in a building over 100 years old, but it really felt like last night was a glimpse of the future—big creator franchises based on big creator ideas. I felt lucky to be a small part of it.