Parade’s Cami Tellez announces new creator economy marketing platform, $4M in funding

Cami Tellez is back. 

Tellez is the laminitis of the viral undergarments marque Parade, which astatine 1 constituent was seen arsenic the Gen Z rival to Victoria’s Secret. Launched successful 2019, erstwhile Tellez was conscionable 21, the institution went connected to rise millions successful backing and pull thousands of customers, but was sold successful 2023 to the lingerie shaper Ariela & Associates. Late past year, Parade announced it was officially closing its doors. 

But it turns retired Parade was conscionable the opening of Tellez’s travel arsenic a founder. On Monday, she and erstwhile TikTok enforcement Jon Kroopf announced the motorboat of the influencer selling level Devotion, which they said volition assistance ample brands to tally and negociate their power programs. 

Right now, galore of these brands person quality teams juggling existing influencers and discovering caller ones. It’s a tedious task often bogged down by however accelerated this abstraction moves. 

“The archetypal mentation of the creator system was built astir macro creators, brands moving with 15 oregon 20 highly disposable faces each month,” Tellez said. “That exemplary hasn’t worked.” Citing a 2025 IAB study showing that creators inactive relationship for astir 2% of advertisement spend, she added, “The contented isn’t content successful creators, it’s unlocking the high-scale exemplary that works successful a content-based algorithm.” 

Devotion automates parts of this process, utilizing AI to assistance brands standard their creator discovery, management, and contented workflows. They inactive person humans to reappraisal the AI’s decisions. 

“There are nary rogue-like agents that run independently of a quality review,” Kroopf told TechCrunch. “But they marque everything we bash overmuch faster.”  

Devotion works with brands connected tasks specified arsenic analyzing influencers’ posts and captions to guarantee they are wrong institution guidelines; it helps brands determine which posts to stock and boost; and it tin supply a marque acceptable people indicating however good a creator aligns with the brand’s ethos. It besides helps brands wage creators, which would beryllium hard to negociate if the work laic solely with humans, Kroopf said. 

“It’s each astir high-scale creator ecosystems,” Tellez, the company’s originative director, said. “A caller benignant of creator assemblage that drives much scale, little CPMs [cost per millage], [and] much algorithmic impact.” 

Tellez said Devotion spent overmuch of past twelvemonth successful beta mode and has already amassed much than 10 clients and reached 7 figures successful revenue. Aside from emerging from stealth, the institution besides announced it raised $4 cardinal successful a circular led by Basecase and Will Ventures. 

“We’re leveraging exertion to unfastened up what we deliberation is simply a caller opportunity, wherever determination hasn’t been a batch of attraction paid from the abstraction frankincense far, due to the fact that it conscionable wasn’t feasible,” Kroopf said, adding that previously, it wasn’t cost-effective for a marque to dedicate truthful overmuch wealth and resources to gathering a level similar this for themselves.

“In 2019, erstwhile I started Parade, determination was nary existent benignant of bundle that allowed you to truly prosecute ambassadors [influencers] astatine scale,” Tellez said. Back then, she and her squad built exertion that helped them way and execute gifting, engagement, payment, and physique an end-to-end pipeline to negociate their relationships with creators. “That was a melodramatic thrust of our growth,” she continued, noting that galore different founders came to her during that clip asking however they, too, could replicate influencer engagement. 

At the aforesaid time, she said she realized that the algorithm had changed, truly successful an effort led by TikTok. Though Devotion was her idea, she brought connected Kroopf to assistance her recognize however to prosecute with this caller algorithm. Five years ago, for example, she said, a creator could marque a post, and it would scope astir 20% of their audience; today, that fig is person to 2%. 

“The provender is nary longer determined based connected your societal graph oregon your follower count,” she said. “It’s overmuch much determined connected the show of the contented and the algorithm and driven by you rinterests and different content, akin contented you person interacted with.” 

The effect is simply a brave caller world: A caregiver successful Ohio has the aforesaid algorimitic imaginable arsenic a macro-creator, Tellez said. “We’re entering into a caller paradigm wherever power has been democratized.” 

As a result, brands request to run similar contented networks and enactment with hundreds, no, thousands of influencers a period if they privation to make contented that tin thrust scale, Tellez said. 

Devotion works connected behalf of brands to physique a bespoke contented engagement strategy to amended recognize which influencers to pat and however to foster that assemblage implicit time. 

There are different creator system agencies akin to this, similar Pearpop. Tellez said Devotion’s caller superior volition beryllium utilized to prosecute much engineers and marque operators to physique retired much of the company’s tech stack. 

There are plans to physique much AI agents soon, though thing tin beryllium announced yet, they said. Overall, Tellez said she thinks brands are inactive looking for authentic ways to link with existent people, moving with radical from crossed the spectrum (not conscionable the astir famous) to get marque messaging across. 

“We are already seeing the statement displacement towards our imaginativeness for scaled creator ecosystems for adjacent the world’s largest and traditionally astir risk-averse brands,” Tellez said. “They don’t privation to get caught down the algorithm. At the aforesaid time, we’re deepening our AI systems truthful we tin negociate thousands of creators with precision — without sacrificing sensation oregon intimacy.”