Today’s content creators are building powerful audiences and driving millions in brand value. Yet they're still forced to rely on outdated, manual talent management models. Traditional agents typically take 20–30% of a creator’s earnings, but cannot offer 24/7, real-time, focused effort and consistent value in return. They're juggling dozens of clients, leading to missed emails, sloppy follow-ups, underwhelming brand matches, and deals that undervalue creators’ work.

This inefficiency is costing creators both time and income, and there has been no scalable, tech-first solution to fix it. Until now.

Today’s content creators are building powerful audiences and driving millions in brand value. Yet they are still forced to rely on outdated, manual talent management models that were never designed for the scale, speed, or diversity of the creator economy.

Traditional agents typically take 20 to 30 percent of a creator’s earnings, yet cannot provide consistent, high-quality service in return. They are stretched thin across dozens of clients, leading to missed emails, delayed responses, poor brand fits, and under-negotiated deals. This results in lost revenue, wasted time, and stunted growth for creators.

For the vast majority of creators, especially those just starting out, access to talent representation is completely out of reach. They are often considered too small for traditional agents to take on, or they simply cannot afford the fees. Ironically, these are the creators who need support the most to land their first brand deals, grow their income, and turn content creation into a sustainable career.

Despite the explosive growth of the creator economy, there has been no scalable, tech-first solution to streamline brand partnerships, ensure fair value, and support creators at every stage.

Until now.

Introducing Retrograde — the AI-powered talent manager built for the modern creator economy.

Retrograde replaces outdated human talent managers with a powerful, always-on AI agent that automates the full brand partnership process. 

Retrograde has called their AI agent Emma, and she delivers everything you expect from a human manager, without the overhead, inefficiency, or human error. With Retrograde, creators earn more, work less, and stay in control of their careers.

Retrograde is on a mission to democratize talent representation using AI and unlock a new era of autonomy, fairness, and income for creators worldwide.

🎥 Watch creator Grace Beverley walk through how the platform works for creators here

Retrograde is founded by two entrepreneurs with proven success at the intersection of technology, the creator economy, and brand building.

Jake Browne 

Jake previously co-founded Peblo, an invoice financing platform enabling creators to get paid upfront instead of waiting 60–90 days. Peblo was acquired by Wayflyer, one of Europe’s fastest-growing fintech companies. After spending a year at Wayflyer post-acquisition, Jake set out to solve an even larger pain point for creators — representation — leading to the birth of Retrograde.

Grace Beverley

Grace is a creator with 2.3M+ followers, a best-selling author, and a seasoned entrepreneur. She’s the founder of:

She has raised $12M+ in venture funding for TALA from leading institutional investors and was named Forbes 30 Under 30 in Retail & E-Commerce at age 23.

Grace’s book, Working Hard, Hardly Working, became a #1 Sunday Times Bestseller, and her podcast of the same name has reached over 100 million listeners, consistently ranking in Spotify’s Top 5 Business Podcasts. She is widely recognized for her advocacy around female funding, sustainable fashion, and entrepreneurship, with features in BBC Radio 4, Bloomberg, and Vogue Business.

As a creator, Grace experienced firsthand the inefficiencies of traditional management, from agencies taking 20%+ fees to slow, outdated deal processes. Retrograde was built directly from her lived experience, offering creators an accessible, tech-first alternative.

Together, Jake and Grace bring a rare combination of operational experience, influencer insight, and fundraising track record, uniquely positioning Retrograde to scale rapidly and credibly in the creator economy.

Retrograde is built on a transactional revenue model. Retrograde takes a 10% commission on brand deals facilitated through the platform. This is less than half the industry norm (20–30%), offering creators significantly more value while still yielding exceptionally high margins for Retrograde due to the platform’s automation.

Unlike traditional agencies that require human managers to service every deal, Retrograde’s AI agent handles everything from brand discovery to negotiation and deal closure. Because there is no marginal cost to servicing additional deals, their gross margins are projected in the high 90s.

According to internal analysis, Retrograde can process a brand deal at a cost that is approximately 57 times lower than that of a traditional U.S. talent management agency. This cost-efficiency enables them to scale rapidly, capture significant market share, and eventually expand into additional creator services such as sponsorship optimization, licensing, and product partnerships.

This isn’t just a cheaper alternative to talent management. It’s a complete redefinition of the category, powered by AI.

Retrograde is already proving strong demand for AI-powered talent management, without any marketing spend.

This early adoption validates both sides of the marketplace and establishes a strong foundation for network effects.

Retrograde has raised a total of $4M from investors such as Elkstone and a group of operators and seasoned entrepreneurs. 

With accelerating adoption, proven product-market fit, and a team of experienced operators, Retrograde is building a platform that makes buying influencer marketing as seamless and scalable as running ads on Google or Meta. This unlocks a significant opportunity in the $400 billion digital advertising market.

🎥 Watch Grace walk through their recent progress and pivots here. 

The creator economy is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the digital landscape, and it is still early.

There are currently over 300 million content creators globally, and this number is rising quickly. The majority of Gen Z aspire to become creators, with a recent survey showing that 57% of Gen Z teens would rather be an influencer than any other profession. Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have become career springboards for a new generation of digital entrepreneurs, but the infrastructure to support them remains outdated and manual.

On the brand side, demand is accelerating. Companies spent over $21 billion on influencer marketing in 2023, up from just $1.7 billion in 2016. This represents more than a 10x increase in under a decade. The figure is expected to exceed $30 billion by 2026, as brands continue to shift their ad budgets away from traditional channels toward creators who offer authenticity and deeply engaged audiences.

Yet the process of connecting creators and brands is still manual, fragmented, and inefficient. It often relies on spreadsheets, agents, and email threads.

Retrograde is building the data-driven infrastructure that this fast-growing ecosystem needs. As creator supply expands and brand demand intensifies, Retrograde is well-positioned to become the default operating system for brand-creator collaboration. This unlocks a massive and rapidly growing market opportunity.

At Hotstart VC, we invested in Retrograde because the team, product, and timing align in a way that rarely happens. Jake brings deep experience building tech for creators, from scaling Peblo to its acquisition by Wayflyer, and Grace is one of the most successful creator-founders, having repeatedly turned her audience into category-defining companies. Together, they understand both the infrastructure gaps and the lived reality of creators better than anyone. The product itself solves a painful, universal problem with a scalable AI-first solution, and early traction from thousands of creators and brands shows real, accelerating demand. That combination of team, market, product, and execution is exactly why we’re proud to back Retrograde as investors.

The latest episode of the HotStart VC Podcast is here. Today, I’m joined by Scout Brisson, CEO of De Soi, the non-alcoholic apéritif brand co-founded by global superstar Katy Perry and one of the fastest-growing names in the NA beverage space.

In this episode, Scout breaks down how she was recruited to lead De Soi, why Katy Perry is the ideal ambassador for a non-alcoholic brand even though she isn’t fully sober, and what it really takes to build and scale a celebrity-founded company in a rapidly evolving category.

Now available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

About HotStart VC

HotStart VC is launching a new fund to invest in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We’re building the go-to platform for creators and celebrities launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.