Drake just sold OVO. Authentic Brands owns his hoodie empire now.

Drake just sold 51% of OVO's intellectual property to Authentic Brands Group. Vince Holding Corp. picked up the operating business plus another 5% of the IP. Drake keeps 44% and creative control of the Toronto brand he co-founded in 2008. The same licensing engine that turns Reebok, Sports Illustrated, and Marilyn Monroe into global product lines now owns the hoodie empire he built from a music-adjacent merch table.

⚡ Key Takeaways

Drake sold 51% of OVO's IP to Authentic Brands Group. He kept 44% and creative control. Vince Holding took 5% plus the entire operating business.
OVO clears more than $50M a year across 12 stores in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., plus a global e-commerce site.
Authentic runs 50+ brands driving $36B+ in annual retail sales through 1,700 licensees in 150 countries. OVO now rides that conveyor belt.
Third creator-brand mega-signal in a month: Alex Cooper's Unwell at a $500M valuation, MrBeast's Feastables at $251M in sales, now Drake's trademark exit.
The read for every creator: fandom is a balance-sheet item, and the platform you build on decides whether that equity compounds in your name or someone else's.

What actually happened?

The deal has three parties and clean math. Authentic Brands Group took a 51% stake in OVO's intellectual property, per the joint PR Newswire announcement. Drake retained 44%, and Vince Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: VNCE) took the remaining 5%. In a simultaneous move, Vince also bought OVO's entire operating business and became the brand's global apparel licensee across design, product, merchandising, and every store.

Deal terms weren't publicly disclosed. WWD confirms Vince will run OVO's day-to-day while Authentic handles licensing and expansion. The brand operates 12 stores across Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., plus a global e-commerce site, and reportedly clears more than $50 million a year in sales, per Chain Store Age. Drake and co-founders Oliver El-Khatib and Noah "40" Shebib launched OVO in 2008 out of Toronto as a merch-plus-music imprint, then opened the first standalone retail store in 2014.

Drake framed the move as a growth handoff, not an exit. Authentic founder Jamie Salter framed it as buying a category, not a garment brand. Both are technically true, and both reveal what actually happened here. The trademark left the founder, the founder didn't leave the trademark.

Why does this matter for creators?

Because Authentic just priced a creator-owned merch line the same way it prices Marilyn Monroe's estate. Authentic runs more than 50 brands that drive over $36 billion in annual retail sales through 1,700 licensees in 150 countries, per its own corporate reporting. When that machine writes a check for a rapper's hoodie brand, it isn't a novelty deal, it's a signal that creator IP is now a licensing-grade asset class. The old ceiling for "artist merch" was a stadium tour markup, the new ceiling is a global licensing footprint.

The playbook is well documented. Buy the trademarks, hand day-to-day operations to a specialized licensee, push the brand into every category the market will bear, per The Hollywood Reporter. Reebok, Sports Illustrated, Elvis, Beckham, Shaq: all in the portfolio, all still moving units. OVO is on that same conveyor belt starting today.

Every creator with a devoted audience should be reading this deal as a comp. Drake didn't sell because OVO was failing, he sold because a licensing conglomerate finally showed up with a check that reflected 18 years of compounding brand equity. That is an exit path creators didn't have five years ago. It also isn't the exit path most creators actually want.

"OVO has earned a place among the world's most influential lifestyle brands because it has always stood for something authentic and unmistakable."
Jamie Salter, Founder and Executive Chairman, Authentic Brands Group

What's the bigger picture?

This is the third creator-brand mega-signal in a single month. Alex Cooper's Unwell just landed a $500 million valuation from Patrick Whitesell's WTSL, per Variety, then shut down its Nestlé-partnered Unwell Hydration line the very next day. MrBeast's Feastables cleared $251 million in 2025 sales, per Fast Company's read on Bloomberg's numbers, and Beast Industries is now reportedly valued north of $5 billion. Different structures, same thesis: creator brands are the new blue-chip IP.

The Drake deal is the cleanest of the three. Cooper cashed a valuation on a two-year-old business that then killed a headline product line 24 hours later. MrBeast is running an operator play, still hands-on, still scaling. Drake did the thing licensing conglomerates dream about: he sold the trademark to the licensing house that turns trademarks into everything, and he did it after building the equity himself.

What does Fanvault think?

The Drake deal doesn't just price the influence, it prices the infrastructure. Drake spent 18 years turning his fanbase into a physical retail empire through direct sales, an e-commerce site, and 12 owned stores. That is what Fanvault gives creators from day one, a storefront inside every profile, authenticated memorabilia auctions, buy-it-now drops, all at an 8% platform fee instead of the 15% Fanvue or ~20% Fanfix takes on subscription volume. When your fans are already treating you the way OVO fans treat Drake, the platform you build on decides whether that brand equity compounds in your name or someone else's.

The lesson isn't "get a licensing deal." It's that fandom is a balance sheet now. Build the storefront while you still own it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much did Drake sell OVO for?

Deal terms weren't publicly disclosed. What's public: Authentic Brands Group took a 51% stake in OVO's intellectual property, Drake kept 44%, and Vince Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: VNCE) took the remaining 5% plus the entire operating business. OVO reportedly generates more than $50 million a year in sales across its 12 stores and global e-commerce, so the trademark valuation almost certainly runs into nine figures, but neither Authentic nor Vince put a dollar figure in the release.

Does Drake still run OVO?

Creatively, yes. Operationally, no. Drake retained a "significant ownership stake" and continues shaping the brand's creative vision, per the joint announcement. Vince Holding Corp. now oversees design, product development, merchandising, and every one of the 12 retail stores. Authentic handles global licensing and category expansion, which is where the real scale is going to come from.

Why does this deal matter beyond Drake?

Because it prices creator-owned IP the same way legacy licensing houses have historically priced mid-century celebrity estates. Authentic's portfolio includes Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, David Beckham, and Shaquille O'Neal. Adding OVO to that list says a modern creator brand can graduate into a global licensing asset with a long tail. For every creator building brand equity today, that's a real exit path that didn't exist a decade ago.

How does the OVO deal compare to other creator-brand deals in 2026?

The OVO transaction is the biggest, cleanest creator-brand handoff so far this year. Alex Cooper's Unwell just landed a $500 million valuation from Patrick Whitesell's WTSL in August 2026, then killed its Unwell Hydration line 24 hours later. MrBeast's Feastables cleared $251 million in 2025 sales, and Beast Industries is reportedly targeting a valuation north of $5 billion. The Drake deal is structurally different because a licensing conglomerate, not a strategic operator or a PE flip, wrote the check for the trademark.