AMT, an innovative AI startup, has just announced ambitious plans to disrupt the influencer marketing industry. Now, they’re releasing Lyra, an AI agent specifically built to drive this change. This platform AI enables brands and influencers to connect seamlessly through the use of simple, human language. It makes other processes like scheduling campaigns, monitoring outcomes, handling payments, and answering questions more efficient. The firm just closed a $3.5 million seed funding round. Led by NFX, a venture capital firm in San Francisco, the round has the company moving their headquarters from London to San Francisco.
The influencer marketing industry is booming, expected to reach $266.92 billion this year. Conventional software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, such as GRIN and Upfluence, require significant human intervention. Like influencer marketplaces in the vein of ShopMy and Agentio, these services still demand much intensive human brainpower for campaign monitoring. AMT’s approach is what sets them apart. It seeks to empower workers by going beyond tools to deliver innovative, transformative AI-powered solutions.
Tom Hollands, co-founder and CEO of AMT, made solving the challenges of influencer marketing a priority. He handled budgets under several campaign chairs and experienced the challenges that ensued. For example, he noted the market today is experiencing a large crisis. Organizations are incentivized to hire 22 year olds because they are more likely to work around the clock and seize as many partnerships as possible before those young professionals burn out. Through this discovery, Hollands created Lyra to address these inefficiencies.
Beyond data enrichment, Lyra has the ability to independently identify influencers that match what a campaign is looking to accomplish. And AMT’s platform increases the personalization of AMT influencer interactions. It does this through the use of a variety of AI models, such as OpenAI’s for general language processing, Google’s Gemini for multimodal capabilities, and Hume AI’s to analyze tone. The outcome strengthens Lyra’s ability to advocate directly with a named influencer. She effortlessly scats above and through brands like a true partnership manager.
AMT argues that its platform can cut down the time it takes to create influencer partnerships by up to 80 percent. Traditional approaches often take more than nine hours of staff time for a single agreement. Lyra does it in five minutes. This newfound efficiency gives brands the ability to scale their creative campaigns beyond the typical limits of human labor.
Hollands explained the challenges faced by traditional influencers' marketing teams: “They can’t remember the names of the influencers that they message, and they spend all their time manually following up.” AMT’s goal is to relieve these frustrations with automation, combined with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence capabilities.
The startup has already gained notable customers such as Le Petit Lunetier, Neoplants and Wild. That success is indicative of a growing interest in its unique, non-traditional, organic approach to influencer marketing. AMT is getting ready for its relocation to San Francisco. The firm is looking to draw on the bustling tech scene there to help them round out their offerings even more, though.
Pete Flint, a partner at NFX, expressed confidence in AMT's innovative approach: “AI is fundamentally reshaping industries, and marketing is no exception. AMT’s approach is unique in that it isn’t just building tools; it’s replacing human work with AI, making it an inevitable part of the marketing stack for brands worldwide.”
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