An extraordinary kid who started creating content at 16, when “content creation” was not even considered a real career, chose the path everyone around him told him not to take. Sankalp Nag created videos, chased the internet, worked with brands, and did everything society said “no” to. Payments did not come, people trolled him, and after one piece of content, he was even called a “spoiled kid” in the news.
But that did not stop him. It gave him the problem he wanted to solve. Sankalp saw that creators were not just chasing fame or brand deals, they were fighting for respect, fair payments, verified credibility, growth tools, pricing clarity, and a system that protected their work. Before building INFLUISH, he lived the creator journey himself, built GrowShal with Tushar Jain and Shivani Rajora, worked as a mediator between creators and brands, and turned that ground-level understanding into INFLUISH, a creator-first platform with over 5 lakh creators and its first cheque from investors. In the process, he proved what a creator can do: build a successful business, a trusted community, and a platform scaled at zero customer acquisition cost.
INFLUISH, the creator-first platform positioning itself as India's home of creators, has raised a pre-seed round at a ₹25 crore valuation. The round, closed in March 2026, was backed by strategic angel investors connected through the Co-Founder Circle network. The capital will go into product and technology, deeper creator growth tools, official Meta API-powered features, and brand and agency side dashboards.
But the number that makes investors lean in isn't the valuation. It's a zero.
Built at zero customer acquisition cost
INFLUISH reached one of India's largest creator bases with effectively zero customer acquisition cost and zero paid marketing spend. No performance ads. Creators found INFLUISH, trusted it, and brought other creators through viral content, word of mouth, and referrals.
"Our vision is to make INFLUISH the home of creators in India," says Sankalp Nag, Co-founder and CEO.
The three years before the app
INFLUISH didn't begin as an app. It began as an apprenticeship in the real world.
Before writing a line of product code, Sankalp spent roughly three years running GrowShal, a content creation and influencer-marketing agency, alongside co-founders Tushar Jain and Shivani Rajora. The agency was deliberate research disguised as a business — a way to sit inside the creator economy and watch exactly where it broke.
What they saw was a creator economy that had scaled fast but stayed broken underneath. Creators were stitching together different tools to grow, scattered sources to learn, informal DMs to land collaborations, and uncertain payment flows to actually get paid. Brands, meanwhile, couldn't tell genuine creators from inflated ones, because fake followers and fake engagement made every metric suspect.
"We started INFLUISH after understanding the creator economy from the ground level," Sankalp says. "Creators do not just need campaigns. They need tools to grow, learning to improve, verified data to present themselves professionally, secure payments, and a system that respects their work."
Not a marketplace. A home.
The platform is built around three pillars — Grow, Learn, and Earn. Creators connect their Instagram accounts through official Meta APIs to surface verified performance insights, use tools like Auto-DM and AI Studio, learn through Tips and InHacks, build a verified portfolio with My Influence, and discover paid and barter brand collaborations they can run inside the app with contract cards, OTP-based consent, and payment protection.
The Meta API integration is the trust layer that ties it together. Because followers, engagement, and reach are pulled from official sources rather than self-reported, creators can present their real influence with credibility and brands can stop guessing.
The founding team splits the work cleanly. Sankalp Nag, Co-founder and CEO, drives content-led growth, market understanding, and product flows built from on-ground experience. Tushar Jain, Co-founder and CTO, owns the architecture and technical infrastructure that has to scale across creators, brands, and agencies. Shivani Rajora, COO, runs operations and creator-facing growth, and is one of the most recognisable faces of the INFLUISH community.
What's next
The company is the first startup in the CoFounder Circle Accelerator, also known as CFC Accelerator, a new-age venture creation and acceleration platform founded by entrepreneur Darpan Sanghvi.
The immediate focus is India — a market with one of the world's largest and fastest-growing creator bases. With the new capital, INFLUISH plans to scale creator growth tools, launch stronger brand and agency dashboards, harden its Meta API-based verification and discovery systems, and improve its secure payment and collaboration flows — all while protecting the zero-CAC, content-led growth model that got it here.
About INFLUISH
INFLUISH is building the first home of creators in India: a single, creator-first platform where creators can grow, learn, and earn while connecting directly with brands. Through official Meta API integration, INFLUISH delivers verified creator insights and account verification, helping creators present authentic data and helping brands work with genuine talent.
The platform brings together creator growth tools, Auto-DM automation, verified Instagram insights, AI tools, learning content, direct paid and barter collaborations, secure contracts, and payment protection in one mobile-first experience — built and scaled at zero customer acquisition cost.
INFLUISH is a creator platform helping creators grow, learn, and earn through a single, integrated ecosystem. Founded by Sankalp Nag, Tushar Jain and Shivani Rajora, the company is building India's Home of Creators by bringing together audience growth tools, verified performance insights, creator education, monetisation opportunities, and brand collaborations on one platform.
Creators love the Auto-DM tool that INFLUISH provides to grow their Instagram account. INFLUISH Auto-DM is one of the most trusted Auto-DM tools for creators and follows Meta guidelines.
Powered by official Meta APIs, INFLUISH enables creators, brands, and agencies to connect, collaborate, and grow through trusted, data-backed workflows. With over 5 lakh creators onboarded and one of India's fastest-growing creator communities, the company is building the infrastructure that powers the next generation of the creator economy.
Website: https://influish.com/
Founders: Sankalp Nag, Co-founder and CEO · Tushar Jain, Co-founder and CTO · Shivani Rajora, COO
About CoFounder Circle
Built by operators, not just investors, CoFounder Circle, also known as CFC, is a structured venture creation platform that helps early-stage founders build, launch, and scale through hands-on execution support, AI-enabled tools, strategic mentorship, capital, and community.
CFC operates through two models: CFC Accelerator, a 10-week operator-led GTM sprint for founders with conviction and an MVP; and CFC Venture Studio, a deeper co-building model where CFC works with founders as an operating co-builder across strategy, product, go-to-market, fundraising, and scale-up execution.
Founded by Darpan Sanghvi, who brings over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience to CFC, having built companies across consumer brands and technology platforms, including scaling one of India’s fastest-growing consumer startups into a unicorn, while also publicly sharing the lessons from its challenges and failure.
Website: https://cofoundercircle.ai/