With 160.4 million followers, Khaby Lame has become the most recognizable faces on TikTok. First blowing up in 2020 for his simple and silent comedy videos, the Senegalese content creator went from a factory worker in Italy to a global sensation overnight.
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Now, after signing a new business deal, Lame may have just completely transformed the influencer game from brand deals and sponsorships to a global commercial enterprise. Here is how he did it.
Since he first became a popular TikToker, Lame, 25, has not relied solely on his TikTok views for his income. In 2022, Lame had already secured a partnership with Qatar National Bank, the largest financial institution in the Middle East and Africa, as its 2022 FIFA World Cup brand ambassador. He also had a collaborative collection with Hugo Boss and was named global brand ambassador for Binance, a leading cryptocurrency firm.
These lucrative brand deals, including sponsored posts of up to $750,000 for a single TikTok clip—per a 2022 report by Fortune—gave Lame a slot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 and have garnered him an estimated net worth of $20 million, according to Forbes. However, with his latest contract signings, Lame could see an extra $900 million land in his pockets as a business owner.
Since his fame skyrocketed, the handling of Lame’s merchandise, brand endorsements, and sponsored posts went through his company, Step Distinctive Limited, which he used to centralize his income, as per Business Insider Africa. However, as of Jan. 23, Lame sold his company in an all-stock transaction between $900 million and $975 million to the US-listed, Hong Kong-based finance and corporate service provider Rich Sparkle Holdings Limited, according to the International Business Times.
The agreement allows Rich Sparkle Holdings to manage everything with Khaby Lame’s online image, from brand endorsements to merchandise and sponsored posts. But Lame is not exactly just giving up the keys to his digital kingdom; the agreement will set Lame up for continued success, as he will become a controlling shareholder in Rich Sparkle Holdings, transforming Lame from TikToker into a shareholder in a publicly traded company, per Business Insider Africa.
The deal will also see the birth of Lame’s AI twin, which will use his voice and face ID to create content in multiple formats and languages across time zones to generate “long-duration virtual livestream commerce,” according to the British pop culture publication LADbible.
Overall, the groundbreaking content-creation deal is estimated to bring in $4 billion in annual sales for Rich Sparkle Holdings as it spans its manufacturing, logistics, and digital storefront operations, per International Business Times. As a major shareholder in the company, Lame will be getting a nice slice of the profit pie, which could see him shoot to the top spot of the highest-earning content creator, stealing the crown from MrBeast, who sits at the top of the Forbes list, earning $85 million.
This is not the first time an influencer or celebrity has sold their likeness to profit from the rising AI market. In 2023, Entrepreneur reported that YouTube’s most popular creator, MrBeast, TikTok influencer Charli D’Amelio and Kendall Jenner sold their likeness to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta AI chatbot for up to $5 million. However, so far, none have landed the same kind of deal that Lame has scored with Rich Sparkle Holdings, which is already being reported as one of the largest monetization deals completed by a digital content creator ever.
According to The Express Tribune, Rich Sparkle Holdings dubbed the business move a “revolution in the global content e-commerce model.” While we can only wait to see how the deal plays out, it has definitely shed light not only on Lame’s creative genius but his business smarts, too.
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