Fabulate raises AU$4.5m at AU$84.5m valuation to fuel APAC expansion

APAC influencer marketing and technology platform Fabulate has raised AU$4.5 million in an oversubscribed funding round, putting the region at the centre of its ambitions to build the next generation of creator marketing technology.

The round, which closed without an external fundraising process, brings Fabulate’s post-money valuation to AU$84.5 million. Specialist capital investors Centerstone Capital and Nightingale Partners were among the major investors, with around 90% of the capital coming from existing shareholders.

The funding comes as Fabulate accelerates its expansion beyond its Australian roots. Over the past two years, the company has established operations across New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan.

It has also strengthened its regional leadership, recently appointing industry veteran Jon Kee as commercial director for Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, alongside Gabrielle Lawton as its New Zealand lead.

SEE MORE: Fabulate taps former Meta and Disney exec Jon Kee to lead SEA, Japan and Korea

Toby Kennett, CEO of Fabulate, said the capital would be used to accelerate the company’s existing growth across the region, with investment focused on local talent and technology.

“Some of the most sophisticated thinking we're seeing around creator scale, social commerce, livestreaming, affiliate models and campaign orchestration is coming out of Southeast Asia. Increasingly, Western markets are looking at what's happening here to understand what comes next,” he said.

“We're investing in two things in parallel. The first is people: putting strong local teams and leadership on the ground who understand the cultural nuances, relationships and commercial dynamics of individual markets. The second is technology: continuing to build products capable of solving the scale and complexity we encounter across APAC.”

Fabulate sees the complexity of Asian creator ecosystems as an opportunity to develop technology that can eventually be deployed globally.

“Our philosophy is increasingly build for the complexity of Asia, then scale it to the world,” Kennett said. “If we can build technology that works across hundreds of creators, multiple languages, different regulatory environments and thousands of pieces of content, we've built something that can work almost anywhere.”

Building creator technology for Asia's complexity

Kennett said the company had learned that Southeast Asia could not be approached as a single market, given differences in languages, creator ecosystems, cultural behaviours, platforms and purchasing habits.

“Markets like Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam aren't simply markets we're expanding into. They're markets we're learning from,” he said.

He pointed to social commerce and creators operating closer to the point of purchase as areas where Southeast Asian markets are already ahead of more established Western approaches.

“A lot of the behaviours that Western marketers are only beginning to explore at scale, particularly around social commerce, creators as a performance channel and creators sitting much closer to the point of purchase, are already deeply established here.”

The funding will also support the development of Fabulate’s AI-powered product suite, including its SparQ platform, with the company increasingly focused on agentic technology to automate parts of the creator marketing workflow.

For marketers, Kennett said, the opportunity is to reduce the operational complexity involved in running campaigns across multiple markets, creators and content formats.

“The opportunity isn't replacing marketers, it's augmenting them,” he said.

Fabulate is applying AI and agentic technology to areas including creator discovery, brand safety, compliance, outreach, approvals, campaign orchestration and optimisation.

“Southeast Asia is an incredible proving ground for that technology because campaigns here can involve hundreds of creators, thousands of assets, multiple languages and markets, all operating simultaneously,” Kennett said.

From influencer agency to marketing infrastructure

Fabulate is also seeking to differentiate itself from the crowded influencer agency market by positioning its platform as technology infrastructure rather than another agency offering.

According to Kennett, the changing role of creators is making this distinction increasingly important.

“Creators in Southeast Asia aren't simply another media placement at the end of a campaign. They're increasingly part of the infrastructure connecting the entire customer journey,” he said.

“They can be the content creator, product educator, livestream host, affiliate, source of community feedback and ultimately the point of purchase.”

That evolution creates new demands for marketers managing creator programmes at scale, with Fabulate arguing that technology must be combined with local expertise to address that complexity.

“Translation isn't localisation. You need people who understand how consumers behave, the cultural references, the creator ecosystem and the relationships within each individual market,” Kennett said.

Fabulate chair Patrick Forth said the company had evolved from an Australian startup into a regional technology player, with its growth underpinned by both its technology and operating model.

“As Chairman, it's been incredibly rewarding to see Fabulate evolve from an ambitious Australian startup into a regional technology leader. What's impressive about Fabulate isn't just the growth story, it's the quality of the business that has been built,” he said.

“The team has developed a genuinely differentiated technology platform, with AI at its core capability across discovery, campaign execution and measurement. That combination of innovation, customer focus and disciplined execution is why Fabulate is exceptionally well positioned for its next phase of growth across APAC and beyond.”

For Fabulate, however, the broader ambition extends beyond establishing itself as another regional influencer marketing player.

“Asia isn't catching up with the future of creator marketing. In many respects, it's already building it,” Kennett said. “Our opportunity is to build the technology here that helps marketers unlock it, and then take those products to the rest of the world.”