On 14 September 2026, Steven Bartlett's holding company Steven.com and Authentic Brands Group launched OBSN, pronounced "Obsession", a joint venture that aims to deploy up to $400m into creator-led businesses over the coming years.
OBSN is aimed at creators building consumer brands and media companies, not B2B. But the thinking behind it applies to any company that sells through trust and attention, and that includes B2B brands. Here is what was announced, and what we think B2B marketers should take from it.
What was announced
According to the Steven.com press release and Authentic's announcement:
- The partners: Steven.com, Bartlett's creator holding company behind The Diary Of A CEO, FlightStory, and FlightFund, and Authentic, the brand platform behind names including Reebok and Ted Baker.
- The split: Steven.com leads OBSN's media, technology, data, and audience growth. Authentic leads brand building, product, licensing, strategic partnerships, and global distribution.
- The money: Bartlett said the partners are "aiming to deploy up to $400m in creator businesses over the coming years". That is a target, not a closed fund, and no first investments have been announced.
- The media arm: OBSN includes a platform for news, analysis, and live experiences covering the creator economy.
- The launch: OBSN debuted at a creator event in New York, where Maggie Sellers Reum of Hot Smart Rich moderated a conversation between Bartlett and Authentic founder Jamie Salter.
In his LinkedIn announcement, Bartlett said the deal took the best part of a year to finalise and that Steven.com now employs almost 200 people. Tubefilter notes that backers valued his company at $425m when it raised investment last year. Business Insider has more on how the venture will work.
The line that sums up the thesis came from Bartlett himself: "A global audience of millions is not yet a company, and it certainly should not be the ceiling of a creator's potential."
What it means for B2B brands
1. Creators are becoming businesses, so treat them like partners
OBSN exists because the biggest creators now run companies, with teams, products, and commercial ambitions. The same shift is happening at a smaller scale in B2B. LinkedIn creators, niche podcast hosts, and newsletter writers increasingly run their audience as a business.
For B2B brands, that means one-off sponsored posts will get harder to buy cheaply from the best voices. Longer partnerships, ambassador retainers, and co-created products will get you further. Our B2B influencer marketing guide covers how to structure those deals.
2. The infrastructure for B2B creators is arriving
OBSN is the consumer end of a wider build-out. On the B2B side, LinkedIn launched its Creator Marketplace in June 2026, and Meta and TikTok have both formalised creator ads through partnership ads and Spark Ads. When the platforms build tools for something, budgets follow. We explain each format in Spark Ads vs Partnership Ads vs Thought Leader Ads.
3. Owned audience is the asset
Bartlett's pitch rests on the idea that an audience has value you can build a company on. B2B brands can apply the same logic to themselves. Every follower you rent through ads disappears when the budget stops. An audience you own, through your founders' voices, your organic social, or brand-owned creator accounts, keeps working.
That is the idea behind Canvas UGC, where creators post daily to social accounts your brand owns. You get creator-style content, and the audience it builds belongs to you.
4. B2B brands still have time to move first
OBSN and most creator economy money chase consumer categories. B2B creator partnerships are still early, and many B2B categories have no brand that owns its creator relationships yet. That makes now a good time to build relationships with the voices your buyers follow, before your competitors do.
What to do next
- List the 20 voices your buyers trust. Ask customers who they follow, read, and listen to.
- Start 1 longer partnership instead of 5 one-off posts.
- Test creator content in your paid campaigns. When we relaunched AI workspace Finden, creator-led video outperformed static creative across every placement and helped grow landing page views by 511%.
- Build an audience you own, through founder content, organic social, or a Canvas UGC programme.
How Regen helps
Regen builds creator programmes for SaaS, AI, and tech companies, from B2B influencer partnerships to high-volume Canvas UGC, through our creator partnerships service.
Want to work out where creators fit in your marketing? Book a strategy call.
*This post is part of our monthly creator economy briefing for B2B marketers. Details are correct as of 28 September 2026.*
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