When Replit wanted to scale user acquisition, it didn't buy Google ads or sponsor another developer conference. It wrote checks to YouTubers and TikTok creators—eventually expanding what began as a $1,000 experiment into a seven-figure annual program.
That migration from traditional performance marketing to creator-led distribution is the pattern Passionfroot is betting on. The Berlin-based startup, which operates a marketplace connecting software companies with influencers, announced it has raised $15 million in Series A funding, led by Insight Partners. Existing backers Creandum, Supernode Global, and s16vc also participated in the round.
The funding speaks to a broader conviction among certain investors that creator partnerships—long the domain of consumer brands hawking sneakers and skincare—are becoming essential infrastructure for B2B software. Particularly, it seems, for AI-native companies trying to break through in an increasingly crowded market.
Insight Partners, which recently invested in Anthropic's Series H at a $65 billion valuation, is doubling down on that thesis. And there's a curious network effect at play: Austin Lau, Anthropic's first growth hire, backed Passionfroot's seed round in October 2024. The customer list tells a similar story. ElevenLabs, Figma, Replit, Framer, Gamma—all AI-forward companies, all using the platform to manage creator campaigns.
The Numbers, With the Usual Caveats
Passionfroot claims it grew revenue thirteenfold over the past year and distributed at least $10 million to creators across 18 months, according to the company's self-reported data. The company says it now works with more than 150 B2B brands while operating with a lean team of roughly 15 people. Most startups at this stage bleed cash aggressively; Passionfroot claims to be profitable while scaling, though the company declined to share specifics on margins or unit economics.
Some of the case studies are eye-catching, if not exactly apples-to-apples comparable. Gamma reportedly drove over 1.3 million impressions through managed creator campaigns—a metric that sounds impressive but leaves open questions about conversion rates and customer acquisition costs. Whether these early experiments represent a genuine shift in B2B go-to-market strategy or simply reflect the flush budgets of venture-backed AI companies remains an open question.
Still, Rebecca Liu-Doyle, Managing Director at Insight Partners, clearly thinks the trend has legs. "B2B companies are realizing that traditional performance marketing doesn't work in the AI era," she said in a statement. "Passionfroot has built the infrastructure to make creator partnerships scalable and measurable."
Planting Flags in New York and São Paulo
CEO Jen Phan is relocating to New York to establish U.S. operations, and the company plans to open offices in both New York and São Paulo. The geographic choices aren't random—they map to where AI software customers cluster and where creator talent density runs highest in Latin America.
Perhaps the more interesting bet is on the product roadmap. Passionfroot is building Zest, an AI agent designed to automate campaign creation, execution, and monitoring—handling everything from discovery and contracts to payments and analytics. The company also maintains what it calls the Creator Graph, a proprietary dataset tracking B2B creator reach, performance, and pricing across thousands of campaigns.
Then there's the really forward-looking piece: tools to measure brand citations in AI-generated answers. As search behavior migrates toward conversational interfaces like Claude and ChatGPT, traditional SEO metrics may matter less than whether your product gets mentioned when someone asks an AI assistant for recommendations. It's speculative, sure, but not implausible.
The Funding Trail
Passionfroot previously raised a $3.4 million pre-seed led by Creandum in late 2021, followed by a $3.8 million seed led by Supernode Global. The seed round pulled in a roster of operators-turned-angels: Kieran Flanagan, former Zapier CMO; Ben Lang, who spent time at Notion; Jiaona Zhang, now CPO at Linktree; and Lau from Anthropic. Sequoia and Accel's scout funds also chipped in.
All told, the company has raised north of $21 million as of its July 2026 Series A. No valuation was disclosed for the Series A, which is standard practice for many European startups trying to avoid the valuation treadmill that burned so many companies during the 2021–2022 boom.
Whether creator-led distribution becomes table stakes for B2B software or remains a niche tactic for well-funded AI companies will likely become clearer over the next year or two. For now, Passionfroot is placing its chips on the former—and convinced a prominent Silicon Valley investor to do the same.
