YouTube Star MrBeast Joins $2 Million Fund to Invest in Other Content Creators

No one knows for sure how much money MrBeast has—except for MrBeast himself, the YouTube star born James “Jimmy” Donaldson. But with an estimated net worth of $16 million, Donaldson seems well-positioned to make the world “a better a place,” the mission he states in his Twitter bio. 

Now, Donaldson is using those resources to help launch the careers of other YouTubers through an investment fund called Juice Funds. 

“Juice is going to change so much you guys don’t even understand,” he tweeted at the time. “Genuinely excited.”

In March, news broke that the 22-year-old was the minority owner of a new company called Creative Juice, through which he’d be working with the $2-million Juice Funds to give creators up to $250,000 for a stake in their channels, per The Verge.

The news came just a few months after Donaldson mused about a similar idea on Twitter. “I wish there was a way to invest in social media influencers!” he tweeted in December 2020. “Like, when I see a channel that I think will blow up, I wish I could just like buy shares in it or something. Any small YouTuber want to give me 10 percent of your channel for, like, $10k to $100k? … Let’s run an experiment and see how it works.”

A native of Greenville, N.C., Donaldson created his YouTube channel in 2012 and gained a following with his videos about the video game Minecraft, according to a 2019 press release from management company Night Media. But his channel really took off when he began posting videos in which he gave away cash to strangers.

According to his YouTube profile, his accomplishments include raising $20 million to plant 20 million trees, giving millions to charity, giving away $1 million in a single video, donating 100 cars, and even giving away a private island.

He has also taken an Uber across the United States, read a 190,000-character word, and counted to 100,000 over the span of 40 hours. With stunts like these, Donaldson has racked up 60.2 million subscribers and more than 10.2 billion views on YouTube. 

In his most popular video—streamed 120 million times—Donaldson put 100 Million Orbeez beads in an above-ground pool in his friend’s backyard.

Earlier this month, Variety reported that Donaldson had signed a deal with the video distribution company Jellysmack to amp up his viewership on Snapchat and Facebook, even though he already had 3 million Snapchat followers and 4 million Facebook fans at the time.

“With this Jellysmack partnership, I’ll be able to reach even more fans on the platforms they prefer,” Donaldson said in a statement, per Variety. “The bigger the MrBeast brand, the bigger impact I’ll be able to make for people in need, so everyone wins.”