Affinity Labs raises $2M to turn creators into software founders — its 'AI factory' grows revenue 100% a month
London AI startup Affinity Labs announced on Wednesday a $2 million pre-seed round to expand its portfolio of creator-led software brands, betting that creators — not engineers — are the next great distribution channel for consumer software.
The pitch: co-found software with the audience already built in
Affinity Labs develops software products in partnership with content creators, co-founding every product with a creator instead of building in a vacuum. The London startup was founded by Edoardo Ricci (CEO), Ahmed Eltom (COO), and Sunny Panchal (CTO), and its model borrows directly from the creator-brand playbook: creators have spent years building audiences in beauty and food; Affinity Labs applies the same idea to software, where the technology and operational barrier is far higher. "Creators are the most underleveraged founders in the world," Ricci said. "They have the audience, the trust and the loyalty but what they have lacked is the infrastructure to turn that into value."
The "AI factory"
The engine is a proprietary AI-powered product development system that automates stages of the product lifecycle — from identifying promising software concepts and matching creators to them, to developing, operating, and scaling the products. The promise is operational leverage: a small team can run a portfolio of software brands because the factory carries the machinery. That system, rather than any single app, is the asset Affinity Labs is really building.
The money
The round was led by Fuel Ventures, with Antler participating and a £497,787 grant from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation. Angel investors include figures from Google DeepMind, Meta, and Playfair VC, alongside content creator Marcello Ascani and Kyra CEO Devran Amaratunga Karaca. The capital goes to expanding the portfolio, growing existing products, and hiring across product, growth, and engineering — with part of the Innovate UK grant funding further development of the AI system itself.
Early traction
Four creator-led brands are live. Interior Design Clinic, co-founded with Olivia Bowen, reached number 34 in the App Store's Lifestyle category. Archives, co-founded with Basel Ghazoghli, has passed 75,000 users and ranked among the top 200 apps in the Education category. Revenue across the portfolio has grown an average of 100 percent month on month over the last three months — the company's own figure, and off a small base, but directionally the kind of number that justifies the raise.
What's next
Affinity Labs plans to launch its first products with US creators in late 2026, with a stated target of more than 200 creator-led software brands by 2030. The thesis is sharp: in a world where anyone can build anything, distribution is the scarce asset — and creators own it.
What we don't know yet
The announcement discloses no revenue splits between creators and the company, no customer acquisition costs, and no retention figures — the unit economics of the co-founding model are still opaque. The 100 percent monthly growth is a company claim, not an audited figure. The open question: whether creator audiences convert into durable software users, or whether the novelty wears off after the launch announcement.