Influencer marketing has become a cornerstone of digital advertising, capturing a significant portion of the marketing budgets of brands. However, the industry continues to face challenges, including detecting fake followers, managing campaigns efficiently, and ensuring measurable return on investment (RoI).
To address these issues, Krishna Priya Akella and Aravindha Bollineni co-founded Starbuzz.ai in 2021. The Hyderabad-based startup uses artificial intelligence (AI) to simplify and enhance the influencer marketing process for brands.
“The influencer marketing industry is growing exponentially, but it’s not without its pitfalls. One of the biggest challenges brands face is ensuring that the influencers they partner with have authentic followers and genuine engagement. This lack of trust in data has been a significant roadblock for many companies looking to invest heavily in this space,” Akella tells YourStory.
The platform automates many aspects of influencer collaboration, making it easier for marketers to discover, manage, and analyse their partnerships.
The founders bootstrapped the startup with about Rs 40,000 from personal savings and now have a team of about 25 employees.
“At one point, we completely ran out of funds, but we never considered giving up. That’s when we applied for government grants and managed to raise Rs 40 lakh through AIC Banasthali via the SISFS scheme. This funding was a lifeline that allowed us to hire our first employee and scale our tech team,” Akella adds.
The genesis
After graduating in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from SNIST, Akella received job offers from many multinational corporations (MNCs), but chose to join Technodom Pvt Ltd, a startup where she worked as a full-stack developer.
“The startup ecosystem was new and unfamiliar at the time, but it gave me hands-on experience in building things from scratch. I learned how businesses run at the core, which shaped my approach to entrepreneurship,” Akella explains.
During her time at Technodom, she observed inefficiencies in the influencer marketing space, where identifying the right influencers, measuring campaign performance, and tracking engagement was manual, time-consuming, and lacked a structured approach.
“Being a tech enthusiast, I knew AI and machine learning could bridge this gap. This gap sparked an idea—how could technology streamline these tasks and offer brands a clearer, more effective way to measure their marketing efforts?” she notes.
This realisation prompted Akella to team up with Bollineni, a former colleague, to co-found Starbuzz.ai. Their initial product, a minimum viable product (MVP), faced challenges in gaining traction.
“We were not meeting the market’s expectations. The product was too basic and lacked the depth needed for brands to make informed decisions,” she says.
Through feedback and market analysis, Akella identified a critical missing element—data-driven insights. She recognised that AI and machine learning (ML) could provide brands with accurate analytics on influencer performance, which would ultimately improve the decision-making process.
“We made a pivotal decision. We integrated AI and machine learning to provide detailed insights, analytics, and measurable metrics for influencer campaigns. That’s when things started to change,” Akella explains.
The product
Starbuzz.ai offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to streamline influencer marketing. The platform provides a vast database of influencers, enabling brands to discover suitable partners based on criteria such as audience demographics, engagement rates, and niche relevance.
“Our platform streamlines the process by enabling brands to instantly identify influencers whose audiences align with their goals while automating repetitive tasks. This allows marketers to eliminate inefficiencies, focus on crafting creative strategies, and drive innovation in their campaigns,” she adds.
Starbuzz.ai streamlines campaign management by providing a set of tools designed for ease of use and collaboration.
“We aim to add structure to this ecosystem by providing advanced AI tools that empower brands to make data-driven decisions. Our platform doesn’t just automate processes; it ensures that every campaign delivers maximum ROI by offering insights that weren’t accessible before,” Akella says.
The startup claims that the automation tools reduce manual tasks by up to 50%, allowing marketers to focus on strategy. Additionally, Starbuzz.ai delivers detailed reports with metrics like engagement rates, follower authenticity, and performance scores, empowering brands to make data-driven decisions.
Growth and future plans
Starbuzz.ai operates on a subscription model, with prices starting at Rs 25,000 for three months. The platform serves over one lakh influencers and 300 brands, including notable clients such as Yamaha, Visa Beauty, Bajaj Electronics, and Meta.
The startup has generated Rs 75 lakh in revenue in the current fiscal year and aims to reach a target of Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 crore by FY 2025.
The Indian influencer marketing sector is projected to reach Rs 3,375 crore by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18%, according to EY.
Starbuzz.ai raised $500,000 in seed funding from undisclosed investors in February 2024. It is seeking additional investments to support its growth plans, including scaling the product further, expanding internationally, and onboarding more clients.
The startup plans to continue expanding its product offerings, enhance its AI capabilities, and grow its client base both in India and internationally.
Starbuzz.ai has expanded its footprint to the UAE and recently hosted a flagship event, Simply Social, in partnership with the Government of Goa. “We believe that data-driven decision-making is the future of influencer marketing. Our aim is to give brands the tools to measure and refine their strategies effectively,” says Akella.
The startup competes with players such as Bengaluru-based Kofulence, Ghaziabad-based Klug Klug, Gurugram-based Cloutflow, and others.
“We’re building features that go beyond automation, focusing on predictive and prescriptive insights that help brands not only optimise their current campaigns but also shape future strategies. The vision is to add unparalleled value to this evolving ecosystem, making it more structured, transparent, and efficient,” she says.
