Imagine you are a brand trying to sell a product on Amazon, Walmart, and your own Shopify store. You know that influencers and online creators can move the needle in a way that traditional ads cannot. But how do you find the right creators? How do you know which ones are legitimate and which ones just buy followers? How do you get products into their hands, set up a commission structure, track the sales that come from their links, and then actually pay them without drowning in spreadsheets and manual follow-ups? For many companies, this process is so fragmented that they either avoid influencer marketing altogether or jump in and quickly regret it. It’s easy to think of influencer marketing as glamorous, but the behind-the-scenes reality is often a tangle of emails, negotiation, and guesswork. That is the exact pain point Levanta, a Seattle-based startup, has built its business around. Levanta provides a software platform that connects brands with a vetted network of more than 90,000 creators, handles the logistics of product seeding, manages affiliate commissions, tracks performance across Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify, and takes care of payments. The company announced this week that it has raised $22 million in new funding, a Series B round led by Volition Capital. It is a vote of confidence in a young company that has already found a way to grow quickly while staying disciplined about its finances. In fact, Levanta says its revenue is up 80 percent year-over-year in 2026, a sign that the messy, human, and highly lucrative world of creator commerce is ready for better infrastructure.
Levanta didn’t start out trying to solve every problem in the creator economy. The company originally focused on Amazon sellers, a huge and competitive group of merchants who are always looking for an edge. Amazon is a world where reviews and recommendations can make or break a product, and affiliate marketing has long been a way for sellers to get their products in front of new audiences. But as Levanta grew, it became clear that the same problems existed on other platforms. Walmart was building out its own marketplace, and Shopify had become the backbone of countless direct-to-consumer brands. Sellers on those platforms wanted the same kind of creator relationships, and creators wanted to work with brands across all of them. So Levanta expanded. Today, its platform is designed to be the connective tissue between brands and creators, no matter where the transaction ultimately happens. The company says it now has more than 90,000 vetted creators on its platform, which means brands don’t have to worry as much about fake followers or creators who don’t deliver. A brand can use Levanta to find a creator who fits its niche, send that creator a product to try, and then decide how to compensate them. The options are flexible: a commission on every sale generated through a unique link, a flat fee for a sponsored post, or some combination of the two. Levanta tracks the results in real time, so brands can see exactly which creators are driving actual sales rather than just likes and views. It also handles the payments, which sounds simple but is actually one of the most complicated parts of influencer marketing. Creators are often independent operators with different payment preferences, tax situations, and expectations, and managing that at scale requires serious infrastructure. For creators, the platform also offers a way to monetize their audience without having to chase down brands or negotiate deals from scratch. That combination of discovery, tracking, and payment processing is what makes Levanta more than just a directory of influencers.
The broader market is moving in Levanta’s direction. Influencer marketing has evolved from a buzzy trend into a permanent part of the retail landscape. In 2023, Goldman Sachs estimated that the influencer marketing category was expected to grow to $480 billion by 2027. That kind of projection explains why investors are willing to bet on companies that provide the plumbing for this economy. But the growth also creates a problem: as more brands and creators pile in, the noise gets louder. It becomes harder to know which partnerships are actually working. A creator with a million followers might generate almost no sales, while a micro-influencer with 20,000 loyal fans might sell out a product in hours. Without good data, brands are essentially guessing. Levanta’s pitch is that it brings clarity to that chaos. The company’s software measures what actually happens after a creator posts about a product, connecting the dots between content and commerce. That is the “missing piece” that CEO and co-founder Ian Brodie talks about when he describes the company’s mission. “Every marketplace has thousands of sellers that want more customers, and there are millions of creators and affiliates capable of driving those customers,” Brodie said in a press release. “The missing piece is infrastructure that connects the two, handles the economics, and accurately measures what happens.” That quote captures the essence of Levanta’s value proposition. It is not trying to be another social platform or another marketplace. It is trying to be the layer underneath all of them, making it easier for brands and creators to do business together. The market seems to agree. Levanta says its revenue is up 80 percent year-over-year in 2026, a growth rate that suggests the company is tapping into a real and urgent need. The company’s growth is even more notable given the crowded landscape of influencer marketing tools, many of which focus only on discovery or only on payments. Levanta’s bet is that brands want one place to manage the entire relationship.
Levanta’s founders know this space from the inside. Ian Brodie, who serves as CEO, Spencer McKenney, the chief technology officer, and Rob Schab, the chief marketplace officer, all graduated from the University of Washington. Before starting Levanta, the three of them founded Grovia.io, an affiliate marketing company that was acquired by Acceleration Partners in 2022. That experience gave them a front-row seat to the frustrations that brands and creators deal with every day. They saw how much time was wasted on manual processes, how hard it was to track affiliate sales accurately, and how often creators were left waiting for payments or wondering whether their content was actually making a difference. When they launched Levanta in 2023, they set out to build the kind of platform they wished they had during their Grovia days. The three co-founders complement each other well: Brodie brings the business vision and customer focus, McKenney provides the technical depth needed to build reliable software, and Schab understands the nuances of marketplaces and creator relationships. The company has grown quickly since then, and it now has more than 100 employees. Perhaps more impressive than the headcount is the fact that Levanta is one of those rare startups that has already reached profitability. Brodie told Business Insider that the company has been profitable or roughly break-even since its launch. That is unusual in the world of venture-backed startups, where growth is often prioritized over profits and companies burn through cash for years before figuring out how to make money. Levanta’s discipline suggests that the business model works, not just in theory but in practice. It also means the company has been able to grow on its own terms, without being forced to make desperate choices to survive. For the founders, this is personal. They are not outsiders looking for a quick opportunity; they are operators who lived through the pain of affiliate marketing and decided to build a better way. That sense of mission is probably one of the reasons investors have been willing to back them.
The new funding round is a significant moment for Levanta. The $22 million Series B was led by Volition Capital, a growth equity firm that has backed a number of successful software companies. With this round, Levanta’s total funding now stands at more than $43 million. Other backers include Long Run Capital, OpenSky Ventures, and Ryan Frazier, the CEO of Arrived Homes. But the round is about more than just money. Levanta also used the funding to provide cash liquidity to some eligible employees, allowing people who helped build the company to cash in on their equity while still staying aligned with the company’s future. That is a thoughtful move, especially for a startup that has been profitable since launch. It acknowledges that the people who work at Levanta are not just cogs in a machine; they are partners in the journey. Brodie described the moment in a press release as a milestone. “This is a milestone moment for Levanta and it reflects how far the company has come and the value our team has created together,” he said. “At the same time, it allows us to reward the people who have been instrumental in building the foundation of the business while ensuring they remain deeply aligned with where we’re going next as we continue building Levanta for the long term.” The language is corporate, but the sentiment is genuine. Startups often talk about team culture, but few actually put their money where their mouth is when it comes to sharing the upside. Levanta’s decision to offer liquidity to employees is a concrete way of saying that the people who helped create the company’s value deserve to share in it. Volition Capital’s investment is also a signal that Levanta is ready for the next stage of growth, moving from a promising startup to a more established player in the creator economy. Looking ahead, the new capital will be used to expand into additional retail marketplaces and to support international growth, which means the company is just getting started.
Where does Levanta go from here? The creator economy is still in its early innings. New platforms emerge, consumer habits shift, and retail marketplaces continue to evolve. Levanta’s ambition is to be the operating system for creator-driven commerce, the layer that makes it easy for any brand to work with any creator on any platform. That is a big vision, but the company has already shown that it can execute. It has built a network of 90,000 vetted creators, expanded from Amazon to Walmart and Shopify, and achieved profitability in a short amount of time. The new funding gives it the resources to move even faster. International expansion is a natural next step, because the challenges Levanta solves are not unique to the United States. Brands in Europe, Asia, and Latin America are all trying to figure out how to work with creators, and they all need the same kind of infrastructure. Additional retail marketplaces will also open up new opportunities, as platforms like TikTok Shop and others become more important to the shopping experience. But perhaps the most important thing about Levanta’s story is the human element. Behind the software, the funding rounds, and the revenue numbers are real people: creators trying to make a living doing what they love, and small brands trying to compete with giants. Levanta’s platform helps those people find each other and build relationships that benefit both sides. That is not just a business opportunity; it is a way of making the economy work a little better for everyone. The company’s story is a reminder that behind every successful startup is a problem that someone decided to solve, and that the best solutions are the ones that make life easier for real people. As the company moves into its next chapter, it will face new challenges and new competitors. But it has the team, the traction, and the capital to keep building. If the creator economy continues to grow as projected, Levanta is well positioned to be one of the companies that helps shape its future. For now, the founders seem focused on the work ahead, and they are bringing their employees along for the ride. That combination of ambition, humility, and shared ownership is rare in the startup world, and it may be Levanta’s greatest advantage.
