Sponsored video performance on YouTube continues to surge — views on sponsored content rose 28% year-over-year, while the number of sponsored videos increased 54% in the first half of 2025, according to Tubefilter. With creator-driven ad spend now rivaling traditional media, demand for scalable influencer partnerships is accelerating. Riding this momentum, Agentio, a platform that connects brands with YouTube creators for AI-automated sponsored video campaigns, has secured $40 million in Series B funding — its third raise in three years.
The round was led by Forerunner, with participation from returning investors Benchmark, Craft Ventures, AlleyCorp, Antler, and Starting Line. Agentio has now raised $56 million total, reaching a $340 million valuation.
Founded in 2023 by CEO Arthur Leopold, former president of Cameo, and CTO Jonathan Meyers, a former Spotify engineer, Agentio has grown 5x since its previous round in November 2024.
Brands Report Higher ROI and Faster Budget Deployment
Agentio says brand performance on its platform has outpaced traditional channels.
– Bombas achieved a 5.3x higher ROAS and a 90% net-new customer rate compared to video ads on other platforms.
– Brands that normally spend ad budgets across six months on Meta and Google have been able to deploy those budgets in a fraction of the time through Agentio while seeing better returns.
Arthur Leopold, CEO, said:
“Before Agentio, creators were nearly impossible for brands to scale. We built AI to automate the ad-buying process so brands could finally partner with creators efficiently. As AI-generated content floods feeds, the trust creators have with their audiences has become even more valuable.”
The company says it has now paid creators tens of millions of dollars, with creators doubling their brand-partnership income within six months. Time-to-first-bid has dropped from 45–50 days last year to less than 24 hours today — a sign of the platform’s growing liquidity.
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AI Powers Campaign Automation, Safety, and Review
Agentio has doubled down on AI to automate the most time-consuming parts of creator campaign management:
New AI capabilities include:
- Reasoning-model campaign manager that helps marketers design campaigns
- AI brand-creator matching that accounts for brand-safety requirements
- AI content review system that checks creator drafts for brief compliance and safety before upload
CTO Jonathan Meyers explained:
“Brands used to assign someone to watch every creator video. Now our agent checks all parameters automatically, saving hours and enabling brands to scale faster.”
Improved AI-driven profiling has also helped match brands with non-obvious creators — for example, pairing a supplement brand not only with wellness influencers but with outdoor creators who attract similar customer personas. Agentio has also begun receiving demand from B2B organizations.
Expanding Beyond YouTube: Meta Today, TikTok & Snap Next
After two years focused primarily on YouTube, the company is now beta-testing support for Meta’s platforms, especially Reels, using partnership ads to promote creator-led content.
Many Agentio creators already have Instagram audiences, making cross-platform campaign scaling easier. The company plans to expand into TikTok and Snap in 2026, moving toward a fully multi-platform creator ad ecosystem.
Forerunner Backs Agentio as the Future of Creator-Led Media Planning
Eurie Kim, Managing Partner at Forerunner, said:
“We’ve been watching Agentio for over a year as it delivered results for several of our portfolio brands. Unlocking multiple channels made it clear Agentio could become the AI-powered media planning platform of the future — starting with creators, the most valuable marketing asset going forward.”
Team Growth and Hiring Plans
Agentio has scaled from 12 to 35 employees over the past year and plans to grow to 100+ employees next year to support product expansion and multi-platform operations.
