Creative agency Talenthouse is “close to failure” as creditors seek to collect on debts from the embattled company.

Talenthouse, which mainly partners creatives with briefs from a variety of high-profile brands such as Coca Cola and Disney, is close to collapse with hundreds of contributors still awaiting payment for work completed according to The Guardian.

The company includes subsidiaries such as Mediafoundry, which specialises in aiding creatives across the game industry, including mobile. This is partially attributed to a slew of acquisitions made by the company in an attempt to expand their repertoire, including the acquisition of Coolabi in October of 2022. The company received a high-profile investment from Animoca Brands back in 2019.

Although many attribute the failure of the group to overreach and mismanagement, one commentator, Michael Bruck, was much less charitable on his LinkedIn “Talenthouse's demise was also brought on by the misguided notion that they could build a neobank. Instead of sticking to their core mission of empowering emerging artists, they pursued a new venture that was far outside their area of expertise, leading to an unnecessary drain on resources and energy.”

Broken trust

For many, aside from the inherent fallout of a major company collapsing, the main loss is that of trust between creatives and companies like Talenthouse. The creative industry tends to be a notoriously shaky profession, and for many Talenthouse seems to have taken their trust for granted. For many, the warning signs were already there with some artists on Twitter commenting that Talenthouse had become known for allegedly not paying invoices on time.

Developer relations manager at Team17 - and editor at Talenthouse from January to December 2022 - Ian Dransfield simply commented in a tweet “So glad I took a chance joining this company last year, what a brilliant career move it proved”, following up with “(I left in December before most of this crap became known - a gut feeling, let's call it).” Whether the warning signs were indeed there and should have been heeded, if Talenthouse does go under it will be a sad state of affairs for artists and creatives in many areas, including mobile.