beehiiv, the fastest-growing platform within the world creator financial system, simply made its first CMO rent, and he’s primarily based in Sydney.
Darren Chait has a protracted and storied historical past in startup circles, each regionally and globally. Having cofounded collaborative note-taking app Hugo in 2016 and elevating Seed funding from Google, Slack and others in 2020, Hugo was acquired by Calendly in 2022.
Chait took on the VP progress position on the scheduling platform till touchdown CMO at beehiiv.
Oft-regarded as the principle challenger to Substack, beehiiv has been loud about its progress focus and a relentless drive to ship merchandise that facilitate all the creator financial system expertise, serving to extra creators personal their viewers, earn cash, and have all of the instruments to allow progress and monetisation on one platform.
If Darren Chait is coming onboard, they haven’t even began but with how quickly corporations driving the brand new media explosion will proceed to develop their affect and affect.
An affect and affect which helps exhibit A – name them an Aus VC agency with funds to deploy into a very specialised sector – to then acquire an viewers of true followers, and maintain their funding thesis future of their arms.
It’s additionally a reminder to world tech corporations that high tech expertise exists in APAC, and in the event that they wish to scale with nice individuals, they simply need to look a bit more durable.
As Chait stated on LinkedIn that he’s had a front-row seat to the content material financial system taking off.
“And I saved noticing the identical factor: whether or not it was a solo operator constructing a six-figure e-newsletter or a model just like the Washington Put up launching a brand new viewers channel, the platform powering it was beehiiv,” he wrote.
“From the second I met Tyler and the group, I understood why they’re profitable. They’re not constructing a e-newsletter software, they’re constructing the infrastructure that lets anybody – particular person creator to world manufacturers – flip content material into an actual enterprise. The velocity at which beehiiv ships (dare I say, flies?), the love that their prospects have for them and the affect that beehiiv has on tens of 1000’s of creators’ lives makes this a straightforward mission to affix.”
The beehiiv story is well-known by lots, however a fast TL;DR will enable you to discover that Morning Brew’s second worker Tyler Denk constructed the tech stack that scaled the much-loved e-newsletter to three.5 million subscribers earlier than their US$75m acquisition by Enterprise Insider in 2020.
Of notice was the notably spectacular referral program, and it was these startup progress chops that led to some severe curiosity when Tyler launched beehiiv in 2021 with fellow Morning Brew alum Ben Hargett and Jake Hurd.
Right here’s the corporate by the numbers.
As of EOY 2025: 50 billion emails despatched all-time. 400M+ distinctive readers. $45million+ earned by beehiiv newsletters. 135K+ publishers on the platform.
Paid subscriptions generated $19M USD in 2025 vs $8M in 2024, a 138% soar.
~$1.75M USD MRR at begin of September 2025.
~$2.1M USD MRR mid means via Feb 2026.
~$1.5M USD ARR progress in January 2026, their greatest ever month.
For a extra balanced have a look at how the brand new media financial system paints an image of the place viewers consideration exists, aka eyeballs, be aware of Substack’s present 35 job listings on LinkedIn.
You don’t have look too arduous to determine simply how aggressively they intend to push their partnerships and viewers progress aims to take care of their ubiquitous stature.
Within the meantime, I spoke to 3 new media individuals who use beehiiv about how they see the present state of play: Will Richards, from In a single day Success; Paz Pisarski from The Neighborhood Collective; and Jess Wheeler of SICKDOGWOLFMAN & Demise to Shit Advertisements fame.
Right here’s what they needed to say.
Will Richards, In a single day Success
Richards recognized a chance within the Australian enterprise capital and startup ecosystem for a grassroots media enterprise to offer better transparency throughout investments and start-ups, launching in 2022.
5500+ individuals subscribe presently. He’s additionally simply launched ‘Cheque Mate’ – a lacking hyperlink between ANZ’s early-stage founders and the traders seeking to put money into them.
“Once I began In a single day Success, I selected Beehiiv after some fairly intensive analysis, and I’ve by no means regarded again. Two newsletters later, I’m reaching 5,500+ readers each week on a platform that’s constructed for manufacturers, not simply particular person creators, which was necessary for me once I was an unknown identify,” he stated.
“The options have scaled with me, the analytics inform me what really issues to my group, and I imagine within the imaginative and prescient sufficient to put money into their Sequence B group spherical. That is the platform I’d suggest to anybody severe about newsletters.”
Paz launched a group for group builders within the depths of Melbourne’s lockdown interval, in 2021, for 17 individuals.
The group serve companies to construct essentially the most impactful communities, and after beginning the CC publication went viral rising right into a 15.8k+ viewers and 700+ group members throughout 18 nations. They’re now working their eighth accelerator cohort program.
“For me, beehiiv is the gold class expertise for EDMs and newsletters. When you expertise that stage of excellence, it’s arduous to return to anything. I adore it,” she stated.
Jess Wheeler, SICKDOGWOLFMAN & Demise to Shit Advertisements
Jess Wheeler, Inventive Director & Accomplice at impartial Promoting & Design Company SICKDOGWOLFMAN, and writer of the extraordinarily well-known e-newsletter Demise To Shit Advertisements, had this to say about rising an viewers, primarily based on an genuine narrative.
“I’ve all the time had a social media presence, however one factor {that a} e-newsletter provides you is management and direct entry to your viewers. With social platforms, you’re all the time on the behest of the platform and, sadly in some circumstances, the individuals working it,” he stated.
“I began Demise to Shit Advertisements on a little bit of a whim, as a spot to only put my ideas on the inventive trade and the inventive course of, and now I’ve received 1000’s of subscribers which can be actively engaged and all the time contactable. Not intermittently focused by an algorithm.
“We’ve had new enterprise alternatives come up from client-side entrepreneurs who comply with the e-newsletter, and curiously, even if you first meet it looks like there’s already a little bit of a relationship there.”
The long run is writing, individuals. ‘Style’ and ‘Storytelling’ because the oft-coined buzzwords of 2026 (no less than in startup circles) require a platform that rewards them, and facilitates that progress, so that you’d need to bee having lengthy assume to your self about whether or not a LinkedIn really does that for you.
Quoting {that a} ‘moat’ is required if you’re nonetheless with out one? What about that buzziest of buzz phrases within the enterprise panorama: dIsTrIbUtIoN ?
For VCs writing cheques, or founders speaking about creating classes and fixing the world’s most urgent challenges, you’re gonna have to write down about that. Low cost techniques on a Linkedin submit to achieve eyeballs solely lasts for thus lengthy.
There’s a motive the First Spherical Capitals and the a16z’s of the enterprise world doubled-down on their media engines and constructed deal-flow engines within the course of the place others dared not tread (and sure, sizable administration charges would additionally assist with that).
Putting a precedence on new media, on curation, on schooling, on TASTE, and thus influencing the push-pull dynamic in an viewers’s thoughts, will finally be a massively contributing consider an period of SLOP, and an Aussie has one thing to say about that I reckon, mate.
- Gaz Williams runs GROUP GROUP, a specialist advisory & execution firm centered on new media, schooling and ‘particular stuff’ for funds and founders.
