Passionfroot banks $15M as AI's noise problem sends B2B brands scrambling for creators

The B2B playbook is breaking. As AI floods every software category with new products, traditional marketing is getting drowned out. Passionfroot, a Berlin-based startup, just raised a $15 million Series A led by Insight Partners to capitalize on exactly that chaos. The company runs a marketplace that connects B2B brands with specialized creators, and the logic behind the bet is straightforward: buyers are tuning out ads and tuning into trusted voices on LinkedIn, Substack, and YouTube.

Rebecca Liu-Doyle, managing director at Insight Partners, framed it as a perfect storm of supply and demand. AI companies desperately need evangelism and education to cut through the noise. Meanwhile, a growing army of subject-matter experts wants to build media businesses around their knowledge. “Passionfroot has the perfect dynamics on both sides to warrant a true marketplace for B2B creators,” she told TechCrunch.

CEO Jen Phan is putting that $15 million to work immediately. She’s relocating to New York to open a U.S. office, with a second new outpost planned for São Paulo. The current 15-person team will grow. The urgency is backed by momentum: Phan says revenue jumped 13x over the last year, and the client list now includes names like ElevenLabs, Figma, and Replit. The startup has also shipped an AI agent called Zest that automates campaign creation and creator matching, and it claims to have paid out at least $10 million to creators in 18 months.

The next frontier, according to the company, is measuring how campaigns influence AI-generated answers and citations — a recognition that if buyers are asking chatbots for recommendations, brands need to be in those responses. It’s a logical extension of the same thesis. When software is commoditized, distribution becomes the only moat, and right now, that distribution looks a lot like a podcast host with a loyal audience.