MrBeast is YouTube’s most-followed creator with 372 million subscribers at the time of writing — but he actually makes more money from a side business.
The 26-year-old, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, owns the chocolate brand Feastables, which generated $251 million in sales and more than $20 million in profit last year, per documents sent to potential investors that were obtained by Bloomberg earlier this week.
Feastables was more profitable than Donaldson’s main media business, including his YouTube channel and his Amazon Prime reality show “Beast Games,” for the first time last year. With $246 million in sales, Donaldson’s media business had slightly lower numbers than Feastables and also ended up losing close to $80 million last year.
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The loss could be due to “Beast Games,” Donaldson’s Amazon Prime show, which aired the final episode of its first season last month. Although it became Amazon’s biggest unscripted show ever, with 50 million viewers in 25 days, it cost Donaldson tens of millions of dollars of his own money to create because he went over the $100 million budget.
Feastables sells prepackaged bars of chocolate in flavors like milk chocolate, peanut butter, and dark chocolate. The bars cost $35 for a king-size pack of ten. The brand differentiates itself with its commitment to ethical sourcing and a “better for you” simple ingredients list consisting of ingredients like organic cacao and grass-fed milk. The chocolate is sold at stores like Walmart, 7-Eleven, and Target in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and other countries.
In 2025, Donaldson expects sales from Feastables to continue to surpass those from his YouTube channel and media business, per the investor documents, with $288 million from YouTube, $520 million from Feastables, and $105 million from other businesses, including his snack brand Lunchly and software firm Viewstats, which sells tools to creators to help them grow on YouTube.
Jimmy Donaldson. Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Donaldson launched Feastables in January 2022, raising $5 million in the same month for the company at a $50 million valuation. Feastables has been a steadily growing business since, with $33 million in sales in 2022 and $96 million in 2023. Donaldson’s company Beast Industries is now looking to raise a couple hundred million dollars to grow and move into new areas, like video games and wellness, the documents show.
The company saw its valuation leap from $1.5 billion to about $5 billion last year following a $300 million Series C investment round led by investment firm Alpha Wave, per Bloomberg. Sources told the outlet that Beast Industries has raised more than $450 million over the past four years to invest in its businesses.
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Donaldson told CNBC earlier this year that he earns “a couple million” in ad revenue and another “couple million” in brand deals from each of his YouTube videos, which regularly rack up more than 100 million views.
He told the publication that he brings in $600 million to $700 million in revenue overall each year, but reinvests “everything to the point of —you could claim—stupidity, just believing that we would succeed.”