Passionfroot, a German startup building a marketplace connecting B2B creators with brands, said on Wednesday it has raised $15M in a Series A funding round led by Insight Partners.
Rebecca Liu-Doyle, managing director at Insight Partners, said Passionfroot is placed well at a time when creators are specializing as AI companies look for more visibility.
“Passionfroot has the perfect dynamics on both sides to warrant a true marketplace for B2B creators. On the demand side, there is increasing consumerization of the way B2B brands go to market. That’s a product of, in part, AI technology requiring evangelism, narrative building and education. On the supply side, there are people who have real expertise, understand a market deeply, and want to create quality content,” she told TechCrunch over a call.
With the funding, the Berlin-based startup’s co-founder and CEO, Jen Phan, is moving to New York, where Passionfroot is opening an office to expand its U.S. operations. The company is also opening an office in Sao Paulo, and expanding its current headcount of 15 employees.
As AI makes it easier to build products, companies are focusing on using creators to improve brand recall and recognition, Phan said.
“Every head of marketing or growth leader I’m talking to is saying really the same thing: AI is commoditizing software and flooding every category with new products, features, and launches. It’s incredibly crowded and noisy. That is why B2B buyers are going to channels like LinkedIn, a creator’s Substack, or a podcast on YouTube to discover new products and tools,” she said.
Phan said over the last year, the company increased its revenue by 13 times, and onboarded clients such as ElevenLabs, Figma, Replit, Framer and Gamma.
Since its last fundraise in 2024, the company has released an AI agent called Zest, which helps brands create, execute and monitor the performance of campaigns. Passionfruit claims Zest can also help companies find suitable creators both inside and outside the platform that are suited to its marketing strategy.
The startup says it uses a proprietary creator graph based on data about reach and performance from thousands of campaigns. There’s also a wallet that companies can use to pay creators across the globe, and measure their expenditure.
Passionfroot claims it has paid at least $10 million to creators on its platform in the last 18 months.
The company says it is working on helping its clients measure how a campaign is impacting AI citations, and how their brand appears in AI-powered answers. The startup is also planning to build AI features for creators, such as helping them with monetization tips and content ideas.
The funding comes as creator platforms like Substack and Beehiiv move to help creators find better monetization opportunities. Beehiiv launched a new community and ad marketplace last week, and Substack has introduced subscriber-only perks within newsletters.
Passionfroot’s Series A also saw participation from existing investors Creandum, Supernode Global, and s16vc. The company has raised more than $21 million so far.