Devotion Raises $4M in Seed Funding for AI Influencer Marketing Platform
The creator economy just got a new operator in the room. Devotion quietly came out of 9 months in stealth and stepped into the light with $4M in seed funding. The round was led by Basecase and Will Ventures, two firms that know the difference between noise and signal. Congratulations to Devotion co founders Cami Téllez and Jonathan Kroopf. Cami Téllez, the founder of Parade and now the creative director of Devotion, teamed up with Jonathan Kroopf, former TikTok executive and CEO of Devotion, to build something that brands chasing culture have been needing for a while.
Cami Téllez already proved she understands how the internet moves. Parade was built in the trenches of Gen Z culture where creator relationships were not a marketing tactic. They were oxygen. Inside that experience came a realization. The tools for managing creator ecosystems were clunky, fragmented, and built for an earlier era of influencer marketing. So Devotion took shape from a simple observation. If brands are going to work with 100s or 1,000s of creators, the infrastructure better grow up.
Jonathan Kroopf brings the other half of the equation. Time spent inside TikTok teaches you something about scale, velocity, and the strange science of algorithms. Combine that platform experience with Cami Téllez’s founder perspective and you start to see the blueprint. Devotion sits at the intersection of AI and creator operations, helping brands discover creators, manage campaigns, review content, and handle payments without drowning in spreadsheets and chaos.
And the early signals are loud enough to get attention. During beta, Devotion generated 7-figure revenue while working with >10 brands. The platform has already activated tens of thousands of creators and helped drive over 1B impressions. That is not a vanity metric story. That is what happens when you treat creators like a network instead of a one off marketing stunt.
The product itself leans into what the modern algorithm rewards. Devotion uses AI to analyze engagement quality, audience alignment, and brand fit, then helps companies scale creator ecosystems with humans still in the loop. Jonathan Kroopf made it clear that there are no rogue agents running wild. AI accelerates the process. People keep the taste level sharp.
There is also a broader shift hiding underneath this round. The follower era is fading. What matters now is resonance. Brands need systems that can orchestrate 100s or 1,000s of authentic voices instead of betting the budget on one giant influencer and hoping for magic. Devotion is building the rails for that reality.
Credit to Basecase and Will Ventures for spotting where the creator economy is heading next. When investors who understand networks place a bet like this, they are not just funding software. They are funding infrastructure for a cultural distribution layer that is still being written in real time.
The name Devotion fits the thesis. Real creator ecosystems require attention, patience, and belief in the long game. And right now Cami Téllez and Jonathan Kroopf look fully devoted to building the machine behind it. The kind of machine brands will quietly rely on once they realize scale is no longer optional.