- The creator economy is getting a boost with AI-fueled investments.
- Business Insider asked venture capitalists which creator startups they felt showed promise.
- Here are 17 startups to watch in areas from AI tools to live shopping startups, according to VCs.
The creator economy looks a lot different than its 2022 surge.
Artificial intelligence is changing 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 gotten harder as platforms prioritize niche, personalized feeds.
If you're an investor, where do you make bets?
Business Insider asked investors who study the creator space which upstarts they believed show 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, said Bryan Rosenblatt, a venture partner at Craft Ventures.
"It has to go from beyond just, 'Oh, that's cool,' to 'I'm going to use this every day,'" he said.
Agentio, one of Craft's portfolio companies, has taken influencer marketing and scaled it with automation, Rosenblatt said.
"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 focused on creating stuff. Suno lets you spit out songs with a text prompt. Delphi can turn any creator into an AI clone.
Startups helping 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:
Ceartas is an AI piracy detector
Recommended 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 helps creators track stolen content and remove it from the web. The company said 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 said 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
Recommended 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 told 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
Recommended 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 show cohosted by Ronan Chambers and Luke Knight. The show, 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 told Business Insider. "We are unapologetically pro tech, capitalism, pro growth, pro having a good time. Now we have unicorn companies announcing their funding rounds live on our show 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 said.
Euka AI is an affiliate marketing tool for TikTok Shop
Recommended by: Sasha Kaletsky, Creator Ventures
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 helps 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 helping enterprise companies get into social commerce and work with creators at scale, Kaletsky said.
Fal is a multi-modal AI content generation platform used by startups and developers
Recommended 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 said that Fal's "sharp focus" on generative media has made it a useful tool for other creator AI startups.
"In my work, I've found that nearly every creator-focused AI company uses Fal to some extent," Zhang said. "They have found incredible product-market fit by staying ahead of the curve, hosting the newest, fastest, and most capable models that allow developers to deliver next-gen content to their audiences instantly."
GlobalComix helps comic-book creators distribute their work
Recommended 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 said 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 said. The platform is also rolling out AI translation tools to help creators expand their work globally.
Nectar Social uses AI to help brands stay on top of what their customers say on social media
Recommended 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 saying about a brand. It also helps 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 said she is closely tracking Nectar Social, describing them as a "social customer lifecycle management."
Opus Clip is an AI editing platform used for clipping and turning ideas into content
Recommended 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 needs. The startup is focused on building its Agent Opus tool, which handles tasks ranging from research to scriptwriting.
Why it's on the list: "While foundation models have made video generation 'easier,' most prompting attempts today only produce 'video slop,'" Zhang said. "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
Recommended 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 said it has over 10,000 creators in its marketplace. It offers legal templates to help companies set up equity deals, as well as social tracking tools to ensure the negotiated terms are met.
Why it's on the list: Porter nominated OWM because it's "building critical infrastructure for the continued rise of creators."
Posh is an events platform used by artists, DJs, and creators
Recommended 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 said. He described the startup as a Shopify for events.
ShopMy is becoming a go-to affiliate marketing tool for creators
Recommended by: Amy Wu Martin, Menlo Ventures; Marshall Porter, AlleyCorp
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 said 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 said. "As one side of retail leans heavily into AI and automation, ShopMy is a great example of how consumers want authentic, genuine recommendations 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
Recommended 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 focused on user-generated content (UGC). Brands post campaign briefs on SideShift, where more than 800,000 creators can get paid to make content on their behalf. The company said 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 said.
Suno is an AI song-making machine
Recommended by: Sasha Kaletsky, Creator Ventures; Amber Atherton, Patron
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 users to generate songs using text prompts.
Why it's on the list: Kaletsky nominated Suno because they have a "very strong product in one of the biggest markets on earth," while Atherton picked the company because of its potential to open up music creation to a broad set of users.
Sweatpals is a social platform for fitness and wellness junkies — and creators
Recommended 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 because 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 end-to-end platform for fitness and wellness creators," Atherton said.
Whatnot is helping live shopping gain traction in the US
Recommended 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 powerhouse, 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 fastest-growing areas of the industry.
Whop is a hub for the creator economy 'clipping' empire
Recommended 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 said. "Whop is increasingly driving network effects as users discover new interests and communities on its platform."
