Later: The AI-Powered Platform Turning Influence Into $2.4 Billion in Measurable Commerce Impact

The Challenge

The influencer marketing industry has long struggled with three persistent challenges, unpredictable campaign performance, fragmented creator discovery, and an inability to prove ROI with the confidence that enterprise brands require. For platforms operating in this space, addressing all three simultaneously, and doing so at scale across a wide range of brand sizes and categories, has remained the central product challenge.

The Strategy

Following the acquisition of Mavely in January 2025, Later became the only platform offering true full-funnel creator marketing from awareness through to conversion. The platform combines AI trained on billions of social interactions and verified commerce data with a unified creator commerce engine, connecting creators with brands and enabling affiliate partnerships across a large number of retail brands. The acquisition gave Later the infrastructure to deliver performance forecasting, intelligent creator matching, and end-to-end attribution across a single system.

The Work

The platform's AI capabilities power performance forecasting before campaigns launch, intelligent creator matching based on verified commerce data, and attribution that tracks influencer-driven purchases through to verified GMV. A Brand Suitability tool gives advertisers quality signals beyond ROI, and the Mavely integration enables affiliate partnerships across 3,000-plus retail brands. The combined platform serves more than 185,000 creators and enterprise clients including Nike, Southwest Airlines, Unilever, and Wayfair.

Results

The platform delivered 100%-plus year-on-year GMV growth, with over $2.4 billion in annual verified influencer-driven GMV and more than $250 million in lifetime creator payouts. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025 alone, creators earned $3 million through the platform.

The Judges' Verdict

Judges recognised Later as a significantly evolved platform following the Mavely acquisition, praising the performance forecasting capability and the brand suitability tooling as genuine innovations that address real advertiser needs. The scale of verified GMV and the breadth of creator and retail brand connectivity were highlighted as marks of a platform operating at meaningful commercial scale. A strong and well-evidenced platform submission.

"The performance forecasting is a unique and helpful tool. They have innovated a lot in the last year and are far superior in their category."