Cami Tellez Launches Devotion: A New Era in Creator Economy Marketing with $4M Funding
Cami Tellez, renowned for founding the viral undergarments brand Parade, has embarked on a new venture in the creator economy. Teaming up with former TikTok executive Jon Kroopf, Tellez has introduced Devotion, an innovative influencer marketing platform designed to revolutionize how large brands manage and scale their influencer programs.
Parade, launched in 2019 when Tellez was just 21, quickly became a Gen Z favorite, positioning itself as a modern alternative to traditional lingerie brands. The company attracted significant funding and a dedicated customer base before being acquired by lingerie manufacturer Ariela & Associates in 2023. Despite its initial success, Parade ceased operations in late 2025.
Undeterred, Tellez’s entrepreneurial spirit led her to identify a pressing need within the creator economy. The first version of the creator economy was built around macro creators, brands working with 15 or 20 highly visible faces each month, Tellez explained. That model hasn’t worked. She cited a 2025 Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) report indicating that creators still account for only about 2% of ad spend. The issue isn’t belief in creators; it’s unlocking the high-scale model that works in a content-based algorithm, she added.
Devotion aims to address this challenge by automating and streamlining the influencer marketing process. The platform leverages artificial intelligence to assist brands in scaling their creator discovery, management, and content workflows. This automation reduces the manual effort traditionally required, allowing brands to efficiently manage a larger network of influencers.
Jon Kroopf, co-founder of Devotion, emphasized the role of AI in enhancing efficiency. There are no rogue-like agents that operate independently of a human review, Kroopf stated. But they make everything we do much faster. This approach ensures that while AI handles repetitive tasks, human oversight maintains quality and alignment with brand values.
Devotion offers several key features to support brands:
– Content Analysis: The platform analyzes influencers’ posts and captions to ensure they align with company guidelines, maintaining brand integrity across all collaborations.
– Content Amplification: It assists brands in deciding which posts to share and boost, optimizing content reach and engagement.
– Brand Fit Scoring: Devotion provides a brand fit score, indicating how well a creator’s content and audience align with the brand’s ethos and target market.
– Payment Management: The platform streamlines the payment process to creators, a task that can be cumbersome if managed manually, especially when dealing with a large number of influencers.
By integrating these features, Devotion enables brands to build and manage high-scale creator ecosystems. Tellez highlighted the benefits of this approach: A new type of creator community that drives more scale, lower CPMs [cost per thousand impressions], and more efficiency.
The launch of Devotion comes at a time when the creator economy is experiencing rapid growth and transformation. Traditional influencer marketing models, which often focus on a select group of high-profile creators, are being reevaluated in favor of more scalable and efficient strategies. Devotion’s AI-driven platform offers a solution to the challenges brands face in this evolving landscape.
The $4 million in funding secured for Devotion underscores investor confidence in the platform’s potential to reshape influencer marketing. This capital will be instrumental in further developing the platform’s capabilities and expanding its reach within the industry.
In summary, Cami Tellez’s launch of Devotion marks a significant advancement in the creator economy. By addressing the inefficiencies of traditional influencer marketing models and leveraging AI to scale operations, Devotion offers brands a powerful tool to navigate and succeed in the dynamic world of digital marketing.
