Astute, a B2B new-media platform founded in 2025 by Vida Stanić (Founder & CEO) and Abhishek Manikandan (Founder & CTO), has raised €1.03M ($1.2M) in pre-seed funding to automate B2B creator partnerships.
B2B creator partnerships automated by two AI agents
Astute uses two AI agents to handle both sides of creator partnerships for B2B companies. One agent manages partnership administration for creators, while the other monitors creator content, identifies relevant conversations, develops creator strategies, secures partnerships and tracks results. The company-side agent monitors more than one million creator posts per minute, identifies mentions of a company and its competitors, recommends creators and partnerships, and measures impressions, conversions, brand score and visibility in AI search engines.
Funding and investors
The €1.03M ($1.2M) pre-seed round was raised from Flyer One Ventures, Silicon Gardens, Marathon Fund, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, and strategic angel investors. Vital Laptenok, general partner at Flyer One Ventures, said: “There is no better team to be building this company. Vida has been the marketer who needed this and could not buy it. Abhishek has been the creator on the other end of the table. But beyond the founder market fit, as a team they have a winning combination of ambition, resilience and talent that we love backing at F1V.”
The funding will be spent on launching the new platform and building infrastructure to help B2B companies grow their brands and audiences through independent media channels. “For years, B2B marketing relied on ads, PR and SEO. But audiences have moved to new media channels – newsletters, podcasts, LinkedIn, X. In direct-to-consumer space, that shift turned influencer marketing into one of the biggest line items in the budget. B2B is next”, said Vida Stanić, Founder and CEO of Astute.
Astute serves B2B companies and independent newsletter, podcast and social media creators. The company lists a team size of 2–10 employees and is at the pre-seed stage. Its business model is described as a B2B new media platform, and funding so far totals €1.03M ($1.2M).
