After announcing their departure from seminal U.K. digital talent firm Gleam Futures last fall, YouTube luminaries Joe Sugg and Caspar Lee have launched their own digital talent management company seeking to emphasize their unique vantage point as successful creators-turned-execs.
Dubbed Margravine Management, the company — much like Gleam — will seek to identify and develop the next generation of native digital talent, according to a release. Noted global management company IMG will serve as a strategic partner, while Sugg and Lee will serve as directors within the company — sharing insights and experiences gleaned over the years. Margravine — which refers to the name of the street where Sugg and Lee used to live in London when their careers first took off — will announce its initial round of hires and talent signings in coming weeks.
Twenty six-year-old Sugg and 24-year-old Lee, who are close friends and frequent collaborators, both started YouTubing in 2010 and have a combined digital reach of 40 million fans. They have since gone on to pursue offline projects as a duo and on their own, including massively successful feature films and books. This isn’t Lee’s first foray onto the business side of the digital aisle: last August, he invested in an influencer marketing upstart aptly dubbed Influencer and joined the company as its chief innovation officer.
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“We have been working in the digital space for over eight years now and can’t wait to combine our experience and skill with the strategic guidance of IMG to offer a new management service and bring about a new era of digital talent,” Sugg and Lee said in a statement.
Sugg and Lee aren’t the only former Gleam creators who have departed the firm to launch their own management companies. Fellow U.K. vlogger Alfie Deyes announced in April that he’s taking his talent management and brand partnerships services in-house with the launch of a new company called PointlessBlog Limited.
