Revving on the Journey from Film Sets to the Power 100

Revving's founders didn't come up through affiliate marketing. Chris Pettit trained as a lawyer and structured financier, spending much of his career in media and entertainment before bridging a different kind of gap between creativity and capital. 

For those that don’t know, affiliates can watch their commissions accruing in real time, yet have to wait months to actually see the cash. It wasn’t long before word of those long supply chains traveled to Chris and his co-founder, David Mandeno. 

The pair realized the very visible transaction data tracked by affiliates could accelerate the time it took them to get paid. The result is Revving's transactional-based funding model, built to get affiliates paid as fast as possible. 

Revving is now a member of the Awin Power 100: a showcase of the 100 most innovative partners on the Awin platform. 

We caught up with Chris at ThinkTank Americas 2026 to talk about the payment gap, the US expansion, and where Revving goes next. 

Chris, congrats on making the Power 100. Tell us about Revving and how it came about. 

My background is as a lawyer and structured financier, but I've spent most of my career in media and entertainment, bridging the gap between creativity and money. My co-founder David and I worked together for years before Revving, largely in mobile gaming, film, and television. 

When we looked at the affiliate world, we saw an industry with really long, really complicated supply chains. People were waiting far too long to get paid, but they could instantly see their commissions. If anything, that visibility just makes the wait more frustrating. They can see something they’ll get paid for, but they have to wait months to get it… 

We thought that if we could tap into that data set, we could fund on it. That's how Revving started, and it's how we came up with transactional-based funding: a way to make sure affiliates and our customers get paid as quickly as possible. 

You've spoken about this being one of the industry's biggest challenges. Do you think it's underestimated? 

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. People get comfortable with the uncomfortable. If waiting to get paid is presented as the norm, most people won't think to push back on it or question it. 

What I think Awin has done well. and the APMA [the Affiliate and Partner Marketing Association], and hopefully Revving too, is bring this to the front and center as a real initiative that needs to be addressed. The logic is simple: get money moving quickly, and you build loyalty between brands and affiliates. That loyalty encourages reinvestment, reinvestment improves program performance, and everyone wins. 

This as an industry-wide issue has only come to the fore in the last 18 months to two years, and I'm proud that we've been one of the biggest champions of that. Working alongside the APMA, and Julia [Stent, APMA advisor] in particular, has helped us spread that message.  

It's a problem that's felt unilaterally. It doesn't matter how big or small an affiliate is, everyone's suffering with that same problem. Awin has recognized this and been trying to address it for years. Now, with some real financial firepower behind it, that's a lot easier to change. 

Is there an example you always come back to? Like a publisher that's really benefited from having that freedom of cash? 

Genie Shopping is a great one. They came to us early, saw the value of using Revving to bridge the gap between how long it took them to get paid, and how quickly they needed to reinvest to make their CSS model [Comparison Shopping Service] work. They're paying out to Google on roughly 30-day terms, but waiting three to four months to receive their own money. So they're stuck in the middle, even though they need capital to scale media spend and grow the business. 

The Genie team came to us, we provided them with that extra liquidity, which they were able to reinvest. And we were able to help them really grow that side of their business. It's a clear example of the disconnect between money in and money out. 

We're helping businesses of every size. Our smallest customers are funding around $20,000 a month, and our largest are into the millions. What I really like is that we've been able to democratize access to that capital. It doesn't matter who you are: if you’re a smaller player in the industry and can access that capital, you can compete with anybody. 

You've been out in Chicago this week. How's the US expansion going? 

We launched in the US in Q4 last year, and we’ve seen a really positive reaction to what Revving is trying to do. There's a natural optimism to the US market that's been nice to be part of, and it's clear they understand the problem and can see how Revving can support their business. 

Not wanting to put a downer on the UK, but I think there's a leaf we could take out of the US's book. If you can access capital, reinvest in your business, scale, and get your leadership on board with that, it goes some way to offsetting the broader economic uncertainty. The attitude out here is genuinely positive, and it’s something I love.  

What's the idea you're most excited about right now? 

We’re really big on the creator economy. We've just partnered with a couple of big creator networks in the US, who intermediate between big brands and large numbers of creators.  

That creator economy is seeing huge amounts of media dollars pushed in their direction. But those creators are often waiting 60, 90, even 120 days to get paid for the content that's already generating a return for the brand, but that capital hasn’t been pushed down the chain quick enough.   

For a sole trader or independent creator, that cash is their lifeblood. We're excited that creator’s growing, so we can support the platforms that intermediate that relationship. The bigger goal for us is helping more people - not just companies - access that liquidity, which means they can reinvest it in themselves and pay the bills every month. 

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