FlightStory, the global media and investment company co-founded by Steven Bartlett, has made a seven-figure strategic investment in Hot Smart Rich, the fast-growing media brand founded by entrepreneur, investor and podcaster Maggie Sellers Reum.
Earlier this year, FlightStory signed an exclusive deal with Nova Entertainment, making all podcasts and presenters within the FlightStory portfolio accessible to Australian advertisers through Nova.
The investment marks a significant move to scale what FlightStory describes as a next-generation female ambition platform, positioning Hot Smart Rich at the intersection of culture, content, capital and community.
FlightStory was co-founded by Bartlett, host of The Diary Of A CEO, alongside CEO Georgie Holt and CRO Christiana Brenton.
The partnership aims to expand Hot Smart Rich across the US and key global markets, with plans to grow the business and team tenfold.
Building a female-led media powerhouse
Launched less than a year ago, Hot Smart Rich has rapidly built scale in a male-dominated podcast and business media landscape.
The platform has already surpassed 1.8 million downloads and reached more than 500,000 individual audience members.
According to recent research, just 7% of business and entrepreneurship podcasts are hosted by women. Hot Smart Rich has positioned itself as a counterpoint, blending business insight with cultural relevance and conversational intimacy.
The platform combines long-form content with an investing and community model, encouraging women to engage with money, ownership and entrepreneurship in a more open and accessible way.
Scaling content, commerce and community
The FlightStory investment will be used to expand Hot Smart Rich’s infrastructure across content production, brand and marketing, commercial partnerships, product development, ecommerce and community.
The goal is to increase the brand’s revenue profile by 10x and scale the team at the same rate.
Hot Smart Rich’s audience, known as the HSR Angels, spans major cities including Los Angeles, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney and Paris.
The community is highly engaged, with an engagement rate of 8.10%, well above the industry benchmark of 2.4%.
More than half of the audience identifies as business-focused, with 31% self-reporting as active entrepreneurs and a further 21% describing themselves as aspiring founders.
Maggie Sellers Reum on building her own table
Sellers Reum said Hot Smart Rich was created to offer a space for honest conversations around money, power and ownership.
“As you can tell by the name, we just aren’t afraid to go there,” she said. “I started creating content that felt like you were out to dinner with friends – a place to be vulnerable, learn, laugh, cry and most importantly have fun.”
She added that the platform is designed to encourage women to take ownership earlier, even if they are not yet running major companies.
“With my content and our investing platform, we’re trying to solve the tension between women driving the economy, yet having disproportionately lower levels of ownership by encouraging them to bring their whole, authentic self to whatever situation they’re in,” she said.
FlightStory doubles down on creator-led brands
The investment aligns with FlightStory’s strategy of scaling creator-led businesses into global media brands. The company plans to apply the same framework used to grow The Diary Of A CEO into one of the world’s largest podcasts.
Steven Bartlett said the opportunity represented a major gap in the market.
“Maggie is a trailblazer who has built an incredible platform and taken a completely fresh approach to the culture of business, entrepreneurship and wealth generation unlike anything I’ve seen before,” he said.
“I was shocked to hear as little as 7% of business podcasts are fronted by women, and yet it is estimated that women control a huge proportion of consumer spend in the US.”
Bartlett said Hot Smart Rich was not simply filling a gap, but reshaping the category.
“Maggie is not just filling a white space with HSR, she’s disrupting an entire industry.”
Applying the Diary Of A CEO blueprint
Sellers Reum said the partnership would accelerate her ambition for the brand.
“This partnership is more than an investment in me, it’s an investment by Steven and his team into the future of women taking control of their businesses and lives,” she said.
“Steven Bartlett has built something truly game-changing with The Diary of a CEO and to know we are about to apply the same methodology to Hot Smart Rich matches the ambition I have always held for HSR.”
FlightStory said the deal reinforces its focus on turning creator IP into scalable companies, as it continues to expand its portfolio of creator-led media and investment platforms.
Top image: Steven Bartlett & Maggie Sellers Reum
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