Agentio, a startup specializing in connecting brands with creators for sponsored content, has successfully closed a $40 million Series B funding round. This marks the company's third funding round in as many years, bringing its total capital raised to $56 million and valuing the firm at $340 million.
The Series B round was led by consumer-focused venture capital firm Forerunner, with significant participation from existing investors including Benchmark, Craft Ventures, AlleyCorp, Antler, and Starting Line. This substantial investment comes as the creator economy continues its rapid ascent, with sponsored video views on YouTube increasing by 28% year-on-year and the number of sponsored videos growing by 54% in the first half of 2025, according to a report from Tubefilter. Furthermore, ad spend through creator channels is steadily rising and is even projected to outperform traditional media in certain sectors.
Rapid Growth and Strategic Expansion
Founded in 2023 by CEO Arthur Leopold, former president at celebrity talent marketplace Cameo, and CTO Jonathan Meyers, a former Spotify engineer who led the company’s automated content marketing team, Agentio has experienced remarkable growth. Since its last funding round in November 2024, the company has expanded fivefold.
Brands leveraging Agentio’s platform have reported impressive campaign results. For instance, Bombas, a socks and apparel brand, achieved a 5.3x better return on ad spend and a 90% net new customer rate through Agentio campaigns compared to video ad spending on other platforms. Agentio also highlighted that brands typically requiring over six months to deploy ad budgets on Meta and Google could achieve this in just a few months via Agentio’s platform, often with superior returns.
"The challenge historically before Agentio was for brands to partner with creators at scale. Our belief since we founded the company has been to use AI to automate the ad buying process for brands to get the best outcomes. As AI content has started to proliferate in people’s feeds, we are seeing that brands realize that this level of trust that creators have with their audiences is unbeatable," Leopold told TechCrunch.
While specific figures were not disclosed, Agentio confirmed it has paid tens of millions of dollars to creators. Over the past year, creators joining Agentio have more than doubled their brand partnership earnings within six months. The time it takes for creators to receive their first bid has also dramatically reduced from 45-50 days last year to less than a day this year, a testament to the platform's scaling and efficient matching capabilities.
AI-Powered Innovation
Agentio has heavily invested in product development, focusing on integrating reasoning models and multimodal understanding. Its AI-powered campaign manager assists marketers in crafting effective campaigns, a feature that is becoming standard across various ad platforms.
Last year, Agentio introduced an AI-powered feature to match brands with creators based on brand safety standards. This year, the company launched an AI-driven content review tool that can check creator drafts to ensure they meet campaign briefs and are safe for upload.
"Previously, brands had to assign a person to watch every single creator video to make sure they were following the campaign brief," said Jonathan Meyers, Agentio’s CTO. "Now, our agent checks all these parameters that save time for brands and allows them to roll out and scale campaigns rapidly."
Meyers also noted that advanced AI and improved profiling of both brands and creators have allowed Agentio to broaden its scope beyond specific creator types or companies. The platform's data matching can connect brands with creators who might have been traditionally overlooked. For example, a health supplement brand typically partnering with fitness creators could now be matched with outdoor activity creators. While most of Agentio's clients are consumer-centric, the startup is also observing increasing demand from B2B organizations.
Expanding Beyond YouTube
After two years of primarily serving YouTube creators, Agentio is now beta testing its platform on Meta platforms, with a focus on video formats like Reels. The company will facilitate connections between creators and brands using Meta partnership ads, which appear outside the main feed to promote products or services. Given that many Agentio creators already have a presence on networks like Instagram, this expansion is expected to scale campaigns more easily. In 2026, Agentio plans to extend its support to additional platforms, including TikTok and Snap.
Eurie Kim, managing partner at Forerunner, expressed confidence in Agentio’s potential: "We’d been tracking Agentio for over a year, building a relationship with Arthur and Jonathan by introducing them to some of our biggest brands, who immediately became customers and champions of the platform. Unlocking multiple channels was a clear signal for us that Agentio could be the AI-powered media planning platform of the future, starting with the most valuable marketing asset of the future: creators."
Agentio has also significantly expanded its team, growing from 12 employees last year to 35 currently, with plans to increase its headcount to over 100 in the coming year.
