The creator economy sees a lot different than its 2022 surge.
Artificial ininformigence is modifying how creators produce content. Social apps are becoming e-commerce platforms, while shopping apps are adding social features. And the golden era of becoming a YouTube and TikTok superstar has obtainedten harder as platforms prioritize niche, personalized feeds.
If you’re an investor, where do you build bets?
Business Insider questioned investors who study the creator space which upstarts they believed reveal promise. Each VC provided a company they had invested in, as well as one outside of their portfolio.
As AI is slapped onto every pitch deck, finding startups that can actually break through with consumers is key, declared Bryan Rosenblatt, a venture partner at Craft Ventures.
“It has to go from beyond just, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’ to ‘I’m going to apply this every day,'” he declared.
Agentio, one of Craft’s portfolio companies, has taken influencer marketing and scaled it with automation, Rosenblatt declared.
“AI reduces some of the back and forth and friction between creator and brand,” he added.
Last year, Agentio closed a $40 million Series B and was one of a handful of creator economy startups that closed eight-figure funding rounds in 2025.
Other AI applications are more focapplyd on creating stuff. Suno lets you spit out songs with a text prompt. Delphi can turn any creator into an AI clone.
Startups assisting creators run and scale their businesses are also leveling up. Whop, a digital goods marketplace where creators sell courses or recruit for clipping, was recently valued at $1.6 billion. ShopMy, an affiliate marketing platform that’s been taking over influencers’ link-in-bio pages, was valued at $1.5 billion last year.
Whatnot, a live shopping platform, raised $490 million in 2025 and was valued at $11.5 billion.
Here are 17 creator startups to watch in 2026, according to VCs, listed in alphabetical order:
Agentio automates creator ad campaigns with AI
Jonathan Meyers and Arthur Leopold cofounded Agentio. Courtesy of Agentio
Relationship: Forerunner and Craft Ventures are both investors in Agentio.
Total funding: $56 million, according to the company.
What it does: Agentio is an advertising platform that applys AI to automate creator ad campaigns on platforms like Meta and YouTube. The startup closed a $40 million Series B in November and plans to expand its team to over 100 in New York City.
Why it’s on the list: Forerunner’s Itani declared that the firm decided to lead Agentio’s recent Series B “after seeing this team’s undeniable execution on a huge vision” of scaling creator ads and building tools to better measure the impact of those ads.
When Agentio was previously featured on Business Insider’s list of startups to watch, it was a seed-stage startup. Craft Ventures’ Rosenblatt highlighted the company’s traction and growth since then.
Ceartas is an AI piracy detector
Ceartas cofounders Dan Purcell and Jonny Smyth. Courtesy of Ceartas.
Recommfinished by: Jamie Elliott, UpSide Ventures
Relationship: UpSide Ventures is an investor in Ceartas.
Total funding: $18 million, according to the company.
What it does: Ceartas assists creators track stolen content and reshift it from the web. The company declared it’s investing in its AI tech in 2026 to improve its ability to find piracy and deepfakes for clients like creators, talent agencies, and other rights holders.
Why it’s on the list: Elliot declared Ceartas has “one of the most effective AI-driven products I have ever seen, let alone in the creator space.” The company saves its customers millions a year, he added.
Delphi will clone your personality into a chatbot
Delphi cofounders Sam Spelsberg and Dara Ladjevardian. Courtesy of Delphi.
Recommfinished by: Ben Mathews, managing partner, Night Labs
Relationship: Night Labs is not an investor in Delphi.
Total funding: $19 million, according to the company.
What it does: Delphi is an AI platform that enables creators to build custom chatbots, trained on their writing and speech, for fans to talk to for a fee. The platform is popular with life coaches and other educators who can program their clones to offer tips or advice over text or calls.
Why it’s on the list: “Creators only have so many hours in a day to engage with their followers,” Night’s Mathews notified Business Insider. “Delphi lets any creator build a chatbot based on their full content library, so they can have personalized conversations with their followers via chat, text, or calls.”
ETN is TBPN for Europe
ETN cofounders Ronan Chambers and Luke Knight. Courtesy of Etn.
Recommfinished by: Jamie Elliott, founder at UpSide Ventures
Relationship: UpSide Ventures is not an investor in ETN.
Total funding: £150,000 (around $200,000), according to the company.
What it does: The European Technology Network, or ETN, is a new biweekly livestreamed business reveal cohosted by Ronan Chambers and Luke Knight. The reveal, which features interviews with European startup founders and investors, mirrors the style of US-based TBPN (though the two are not affiliated). “It’s super informal,” Chambers notified Business Insider. “We are unapoloreceiveically pro tech, capitalism, pro growth, pro having a good time. Now we have unicorn companies announcing their funding rounds live on our reveal as exclusives before major outlets.”
Why it’s on the list: “Businesses that build their core offering around a content engine are taking off right now, as they have proprietary distribution,” Elliott declared.
Euka AI is an affiliate marketing tool for TikTok Shop
Euka AI cofounders Jeremy Ding and Kevin Wang. Courtesy of Euka AI.
Relationship: Creator Ventures is an investor in Euka AI.
Total funding: Undisclosed seed round.
What it does: Euka AI is an affiliate-marketing platform that assists brands find and work with creators on TikTok Shop campaigns.
Why it’s on the list: TikTok Shop is a growing player in US e-commerce. Euka AI is assisting enterprise companies receive into social commerce and work with creators at scale, Kaletsky declared.
Fal is a multi-modal AI content generation platform applyd by startups and developers
Fal cofounders Burkay Gür and Gorkem Yurtseven. Courtesy of Fal
Recommfinished by: Gloria Zhang, DCM Ventures
Relationship: DCM Ventures is not an investor in Fal.
Total funding: $300 million, according to the company.
What it does: Fal is a generative AI media startup for developers. The platform offers over 1,000 models to create images, video, audio, or 3D content. Fal was founded in 2021 by Burkay Gür and Gorkem Yurtseven, and the startup raised a $140 million Series D investment round led by Sequoia.
Why it’s on the list: Zhang declared that Fal’s “sharp focus” on generative media has created it a applyful tool for other creator AI startups.
“In my work, I’ve found that nearly every creator-focapplyd AI company applys Fal to some extent,” Zhang declared. “They have found incredible product-market fit by staying ahead of the curve, hosting the newest, rapidest, and most capable models that allow developers to deliver next-gen content to their audiences instantly.”
GlobalComix assists comic-book creators distribute their work
Henrik Rydberg, CEO of GlobalComix. Courtesy of GlobalComix.
Recommfinished by: Ishan Sinha, Point72 Ventures
Relationship: Point72 Ventures is an investor in GlobalComix.
Total funding: $20 million, according to the company.
What it does: GlobalComix is a digital publishing and distribution platform for comic book creators. The company declared it works with over 330 publishers and more than 25,000 creators, reaching millions of readers globally.
Why it’s on the list: GlobalComix allows creators to upload their work and “be featured alongside globally recognized IP,” Point72 Ventures’ Sinha declared. The platform is also rolling out AI translation tools to assist creators expand their work globally.
Nectar Social applys AI to assist brands stay on top of what their customers declare on social media
Nectar Social cofounders Farah Uraizee and Misbah Uraizee. Courtesy of Nectar Social
Recommfinished by: Amy Wu Martin, Menlo Ventures
Relationship: Menlo Ventures is not an investor in Nectar Social.
Total funding: $10.6 million, according to the company.
What it does: Nectar Social is an agentic AI social commerce platform founded by sisters Misbah and Farah Uraizee, both with experience at Big Tech companies like Meta. The startup analyzes social media content like comments, DMs, and posts to understand what people are declareing about a brand. It also assists brands manage their communities of creators and fans. The startup came out of stealth last year and raised capital from Google Ventures and True Ventures.
Why it’s on the list: Martin declared she is closely tracking Nectar Social, describing them as a “social customer lifecycle management.”
Opus Clip is an AI editing platform applyd for clipping and turning ideas into content
Cofounders Grace Wang (CMO), Young Zhao (CEO), and Jay Wu (CTO). OpusClip.
Recommfinished by: Gloria Zhang, DCM Ventures
Relationship: DCM Ventures is an investor in Opus Clip.
Total funding: $50 million, according to the company.
What it does: Opus Clip is an AI video editing platform for clipping — repurposing content from podcasts or vlogs into short-form videos — and other editing requireds. The startup is focapplyd on building its Agent Opus tool, which handles tquestions ranging from research to scriptwriting.
Why it’s on the list: “While foundation models have created video generation ‘clearer,’ most prompting attempts today only produce ‘video slop,'” Zhang declared. “Opus is one of the few agentic products I’ve seen that produces videos audiences actually want to watch.”
OWM enables brands to offer equity to influencers
OWM cofounders Jeff and Sylwia Frommer. Courtesy of OWM.
Recommfinished by: Marshall Porter, General Partner at AlleyCorp
Relationship: AlleyCorp is not an investor in OWM.
Total funding: $1 million, according to the company.
What it does: OWM is a creator marketing platform where early- to growth-stage companies can offer equity to influencers for promotions instead of standard payments. The company declared it has over 10,000 creators in its marketplace. It offers legal templates to assist companies set up equity deals, as well as social tracking tools to ensure the neobtainediated terms are met.
Why it’s on the list: Porter nominated OWM becaapply it’s “building critical infrastructure for the continued rise of creators.”
Posh is an events platform applyd by artists, DJs, and creators
Posh, an event platform, is headquartered in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. Courtesy of Posh
Recommfinished by: Ishan Sinha, Point72 Ventures
Relationship: Point72 is not an investor in Posh.
Total funding: $40 million, according to Forbes.
What it does: Posh is an IRL social platform for hosting, ticketing, marketing, or discovering events. The startup is based in New York City and was founded by NYU dropouts.
Why it’s on the list: “After several years of impressive growth, Posh is emerging as a creator‑first platform that allows creators to monetize their fanbases through live, in‑person events,” Sinha declared. He described the startup as a Shopify for events.
ShopMy is becoming a go-to affiliate marketing tool for creators
ShopMy cofounders Harry Rein, Tiffany Lopinsky, and Chris Tinsley. Courtesy of ShopMy
Relationship: Menlo Ventures and AlleyCorp are both investors in ShopMy.
Total funding: $166 million, according to the company.
What it does: ShopMy has become an influencer favorite among the many options for affiliate link services. ShopMy offers creators a commission from sales driven through product links via the platform, which has over 1,200 brands. The company declared it facilitates over $1 billion in annual sales and, after raising additional venture capital last year, was valued at $1.5 billion.
Why it’s on the list: “We invested in ShopMy two years back, and have been blown away at the speed with which they have completely redefined the creator economy,” AlleyCorp’s Porter declared. “As one side of retail leans heavily into AI and automation, ShopMy is a great example of how consumers want authentic, genuine recommfinishations from sources they trust.”
Martin highlighted that ShopMy had expanded beyond beauty and fashion. The platform now lets creators promote links to brands selling in categories like home, health, and food.
SideShift is a UGC marketing platform
SideShift founder and CEO Nick Lawton. Courtesy of SideShift.
Recommfinished by: Maya Bakhai, Spice Capital
Relationship: Spice Capital is not an investor in SideShift.
Total funding: $2.2 million, according to the company.
What it does: SideShift is an influencer marketing platform focapplyd on applyr-generated content (UGC). Brands post campaign briefs on SideShift, where more than 800,000 creators can receive paid to build content on their behalf. The company declared it’s paid out more than $100 million to creators and plans to expand to over 25 employees in 2026.
Why it’s on the list: “SideShift is becoming a key demand-side layer supporting how creators and brands collaborate in the creator economy,” Bakhai declared.
Suno is an AI song-building machine
Suno cofounder and CEO Mikey Shulman. Jimmy Fontaine.
Relationship: Neither Creator Ventures nor Patron is an investor in Suno.
Total funding: $375 million, according to PitchBook.
What it does: Suno is an AI tool that allows applyrs to generate songs applying text prompts.
Why it’s on the list: Kaletsky nominated Suno becaapply they have a “very strong product in one of the hugegest markets on earth,” while Atherton picked the company becaapply of its potential to open up music creation to a broad set of applyrs.
Sweatpals is a social platform for fitness and wellness junkies — and creators
Sweatpals cofounders Salar Shahini and Mandi Zhou. TOMAS SEGURA/Supernatural
Recommfinished by: Amber Atherton, Patron
Relationship: Patron is an investor in Sweatpals.
Total funding: $17.2 million, according to the company.
What it does: A platform for discovering and joining fitness and wellness activities, Sweatpals has been expanding to more US markets and adding tools for event hosts, which include fitness creators. The platform recently added the option for studios and gyms to run their businesses on Sweatpals.
Why it’s on the list: Patron co-led Sweatpals’ recent seed round becaapply the startup sits at the intersection of the creator economy and in-real-life (IRL) socializing tools that have investors like Atherton turning their heads.
“They are that finish-to-finish platform for fitness and wellness creators,” Atherton declared.
Whatnot is assisting live shopping gain traction in the US
Whatnot cofounders Logan Head and Grant LaFontaine. Whatnot
Recommfinished by: Bryan Rosenblatt, venture partner at Craft Ventures
Relationship: Craft Ventures is not an investor in Whatnot.
Total funding: $968 million, according to the company.
What it does: Whatnot is a live shopping platform where hosts sell products in categories like fashion, collectibles, and beauty.
Why it’s on the list: Whatnot has grown into a creator-economy powerhoapply, scoring an $11.5 billion valuation during its most recent funding round announced in October. The company merges social and e-commerce, one of the rapidest-growing areas of the indusattempt.
Whop is a hub for the creator economy ‘clipping’ empire
Whop cofounders Cameron Zoub, Steven Schwartz (CEO), and Jack Sharkey. Courtesy of Whop
Recommfinished by: Merritt Hummer, Bain Capital Ventures
Relationship: BCV is an investor in Whop.
Total funding: $277 million, according to the company.
What it does: Whop is a digital goods marketplace for creators — or any business owner — to sell online services like courses and memberships. It’s also where clipping campaigns, which promote creator content in short-form style videos, are recruiting clippers.
Why it’s on the list: “By giving creators the tools to share subscription courses and content, build premium communities, and manage payments in a single intuitive platform, Whop turns creators into entrepreneurs,” Hummer declared. “Whop is increasingly driving network effects as applyrs discover new interests and communities on its platform.”
Leave a Reply