23 January 2026

^{Joel Morris, Will Monange and Harry Fitzgerald (left to right)}

In an interview with MoveTheNeedle.news, Fanvue co-founders Will Monange, Joel Morris and Harry Fitzgerald outline how the company has grown into a $100m-plus run-rate business, why they believe artificial intelligence is reshaping the creator economy, and how a newly announced $22m Series A funding round will be used to accelerate international expansion, product development and team growth.

Founded in 2022, Fanvue positions itself as an AI-powered creator monetisation platform built around direct relationships between creators and fans. The company reports 450% year-on-year revenue growth, with more than 20,000 new creators joining in a single month, reflecting the pace at which demand for direct-to-fan business models continues to increase.

Defining the “Creator AI Economy”

Fanvue describes its core market as the “Creator AI Economy,” a term the company uses to distinguish its approach from traditional creator platforms that rely heavily on advertising or algorithmic distribution.

“The Creator AI Economy is the exponentially-growing sector that sees content creators utilising Artificial Intelligence to accelerate their earnings, scale their business, and more closely connect with fans,” says Monange.

The framing reflects a broader shift. While large social platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok remain critical for discovery, many creators are seeking more predictable revenue streams and greater control over monetisation. Subscription platforms, newsletters and membership-based communities have grown in parallel, as creators diversify income away from advertising alone.

Fanvue’s proposition is that AI can act as enabling infrastructure within this shift, allowing individual creators to operate with the scale and sophistication of much larger teams.

Founders’ experience shapes the product

Fanvue’s origins are closely tied to the personal experience of its founders as creators. 

“As a former YouTuber I experienced monetisation instability and difficulties advertising firsthand, including dramatically decreasing ad rates, which were real pain points for creators like me,” Morris says. “Fanvue’s mission is to provide a solution to these problems in the creator economy by allowing creators to directly monetise their own fan base with new and revolutionary tools. It allows single creators to operate like entire businesses - a single creator can leverage the power of AI tools to compete with massive creative teams.”

This positioning places Fanvue alongside other direct-to-fan platforms, while differentiating itself through the depth of AI integration across communication, analytics and workflow.

AI tools built around personalisation at scale

At the centre of Fanvue’s platform is a set of AI-driven tools designed to help creators maintain personalised fan relationships without being permanently online.

“Fanvue's tools are built to allow creators to scale their connection with fans, offering deeply personal and tailored experiences without having to be ‘always-on’,” says Monange. “Our AI voice call and messaging tools allow creators to speak to every fan like they're the only one, and our advanced AI Analytics tell creators what's working and resonating for each fan so they can double down on personalisation."

Fanvue says it has pioneered the launch of five industry-leading AI tools - AI Message Generation, AI Fan Notes Capture, AI Voice Notes, AI Voice Calls, and Image Recognition and Tagging. According to the company, these tools are designed not as standalone features, but as part of a system that directly supports creator revenue.

Revenue growth driven by workflow impact

Fanvue attributes its reported 450% year-on-year revenue growth to a deliberate focus on tools that have a measurable effect on creator earnings, rather than a broad feature set.

“Our core growth driver was developing tools that actually benefit creators and allow them to monetise effectively, using AI to offer new experiences and a deeper connection rather than just ‘tech for tech's sake’,” Monange says. “Our goal isn't to add a variety of tools to the mix just to offer a breadth of options, but rather to offer and improve only those tools which have a measurable impact on the creator workflow and allow creators to earn more, faster,” Monange adds.

Fanvue also points to investment in high-profile creators as part of its growth strategy.

“With this laser focus on effective tooling, as well as investment into big-name mainstream creators who back our vision, we've been able to grow at pace,” Monange says.

Trust, transparency and governance at scale

As AI becomes more visible within creator workflows, concerns around deepfakes, fabricated content and audience trust have become central issues across the industry. Fanvue says governance and transparency are foundational as the platform scales.

“One of the biggest complaints about AI’s involvement in the creator economy is the fear of deepfakes or fabricated news,” says Fitzgerald.

To address this, Fanvue has partnered with content moderation platform Hive to identify whether content is AI-generated and to enforce transparency when it is.

“Trust with the fan is built on transparency and time; trust with the creator is built on predictability and control,” Fitzgerald says. “We build tools that allow creators to do what they already do better, and look to pioneer new experiences for creators and fans, but the fans' desire to engage is the best determinant of value. Authenticity breaks down when there's disillusion or a lack of transparency.”

He adds: “We’ve always avoided automation that doesn’t add real value. AI features must respect fan experience, not diminish it. That means features that feel personal and human-centred, not deceptive.”

Deploying the $22m Series A

Fanvue says the newly announced $22m Series A funding will be used across international expansion, product development and team growth, with the US identified as a priority market. The company is also investing in leadership and operational capacity.

“We continue to build out a world-class team and culture, hiring former Amazon and TikTok members of staff in key leadership positions, which the fundraise allows us to accelerate,” Fitzgerald says. He adds that investing heavily in product and technology is key to them. “We’re determined to be the brand at the helm of a product transforming the direct-to-fan model and unlocking direct-to-fan potential in the wider Creator Economy.”

Competing in the evolving creator platform landscape

Fanvue operates in a competitive and increasingly crowded market that includes established subscription platforms, community tools and social networks introducing native monetisation features. The company’s differentiation lies in its focus on AI-driven personalisation as a direct revenue lever rather than a background optimisation layer.

As creators continue to diversify income streams and reduce reliance on advertising algorithms, platforms that combine predictable monetisation with scalable fan engagement are gaining prominence. Fanvue’s growth metrics suggest strong traction among creators looking to professionalise their operations.

Looking to the future, the founders frame success in terms of cultural adoption as well as commercial scale.

“We're already seeing big-name creators back our vision, which is encouraging because we believe, in time, all successful creators will adopt the direct-to-fan model rather than being purely beholden to social media algorithms,” says Morris.

“Success in 2026 will look like an increased tidal wave of mainstream creators across all verticals - music, sport, fashion and more - coming on board and seeing just what our tools can do for them.”

For Fanvue, the Series A represents not just capital, but validation of a thesis: that AI, when applied carefully and transparently, can strengthen — rather than replace — the human connection at the heart of the creator economy.

 

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