Devotion launches with $4 million to scale brands’ creator programs

Devotion, a new AI-driven influencer marketing platform co-founded by Cami Tellez (also spelled Cami Téllez) and former TikTok executive Jonathan Kroopf, announced its launch on Monday with $4 million in initial funding. The company says it will help large brands move from small influencer rosters to scaled creator ecosystems, enabling partnerships with hundreds or even thousands of creators.

Devotion positions itself as an automation and orchestration layer for brand-creator programs, using machine learning to identify talent, automate outreach and manage creator relationships at scale. Founders say the product will deploy AI “agents” to handle many routine tasks; more agents are planned “soon,” but the team says nothing further can be announced yet. The platform is pitched as a response to what Téllez calls a shift away from follower-count metrics and toward distributed, performance-aligned creator strategies.

“Brands need to transition from collaborating with 20 to 30 creators monthly to partnering with 500 to 1,000,” Téllez said. She framed the move as a corrective to early influencer-playbooks, arguing that the first version of the creator economy failed brands. “Version one of the creator economy for brands, which was that working with a select group of macro-creators [would] build brand equity and awareness, was a broken promise,” Téllez added. She further described industry momentum behind the idea of broad creator networks: “We are already seeing the consensus shift towards our vision for scaled creator ecosystems for even the world’s largest and traditionally most risk-averse brands,” and warned, “They don’t want to get caught behind the algorithm. At the same time, we’re deepening our AI systems so we can manage thousands of creators with precision — without sacrificing taste or intimacy.”

Téllez, who launched direct-to-consumer underwear brand Parade in 2019 at age 21 and later sold the company in 2023 to lingerie manufacturer Ariela & Associates, brings to Devotion an operational playbook built on ambassador networks. Parade’s ambassador program helped grow the business to what Téllez has said was $10 million in annual revenue; the brand also raised unspecified millions and attracted thousands of customers before its sale. Parade later announced on Instagram that it would be closing “after six ‘incredible’ years of telling its ‘own unique underwear story,’” and some former creators and customers criticized post-sale changes to product quality and program management.

Those criticisms surface as Devotion pitches a “more-is-more” approach to creator marketing, arguing that many brands no longer rely on single creators or blanket follower counts to move audiences. Market estimates cited by the founders’ backers point to rapid creator growth; one industry forecast projects as many as 1.1 billion creators by 2032, underscoring demand for tools that can coordinate distributed talent at scale.

Key details remain undisclosed. Devotion has not named its investors, revealed a client roster, or published a full product feature list or pricing. Kroopf’s exact prior role at TikTok and formal titles at Devotion were not provided in the launch materials.

The platform’s success will hinge on whether AI can preserve creative nuance and creator relationships even as campaigns balloon in scope, and whether brands will entrust mass creator coordination to automated systems after recent controversies over program fairness and inclusion. Devotion’s $4 million start gives it runway to build tooling and sign pilots, but the company will face scrutiny from brands and creators who want evidence that scale can coexist with authenticity.