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The world of social media marketing is changing faster than ever, and startups building AI tools for brands are suddenly becoming some of Silicon Valley’s hottest bets. The latest company to ride that wave is Nectar Socialwhich has announced a $30 million Series A funding round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, created alongside Anthropic.

The Palo Alto-based startup, founded by sisters Misbah and Farah Uraizee, is also officially launching “Nectar Agent,” an autonomous AI system designed to manage brand conversations across social platforms in real time. The company believes that the future of marketing will no longer depend on static ads or scheduled posts, but on brands being constantly present in DMs, comments, creator communities, and online conversations.

Credits: Net Influencer

Why Brands Are Struggling to Keep Up

Social media has evolved far beyond simply posting content on Instagram or X. Today, purchasing decisions are shaped in comment sections, Reddit threads, private group chats, influencer replies, and short-form video discussions happening around the clock.

For brands, keeping up with these conversations manually has become nearly impossible.

That’s exactly the problem Nectar wants to solve. According to CEO and co-founder Misbah Uraizee, AI-generated content is exploding across the internet, meaning brands now need what she calls “infinite presence.”

Instead of relying on human social media teams to monitor every conversation, Nectar’s AI agents are designed to step in automatically while maintaining the brand’s tone and personality. The company says its platform combines social intelligence, creator management, customer engagement, and conversational commerce into one unified system.

The startup has already secured official data partnerships with platforms including Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Redditand X.

Built by Former Meta Leaders

One of Nectar’s biggest advantages is the background of its founders. Both sisters previously held leadership positions at Meta and worked on products used by billions of people worldwide.

Farah Uraizee, the company’s CTO, helped scale Facebook Groups to more than one billion users during her time at Meta. Her work focused on building online communities and creating systems that encouraged active participation rather than passive scrolling.

Meanwhile, Misbah Uraizee worked on Meta’s News Feed and creator monetization efforts, as well as projects at X. Her experience centered around content discovery and helping creators turn audience engagement into revenue streams.

That insider understanding of how social platforms function appears to have resonated strongly with investors.

Rapid Growth in Less Than a Year

Although Nectar only emerged from stealth in 2025, the company claims it is already handling more than 10 million conversations every week across pre-purchase, post-purchase, and creator workflows.

The startup says its growth has accelerated rapidly, increasing fivefold over the last three months alone. According to the company, each AI agent can automate roughly 20 hours of manual work per task every week, significantly reducing the burden on brand teams.

Nectar also claims to have attributed more than $100 million in revenue directly back to social media interactions while engaging over 50 million consumers.

Some major consumer brands are already using the platform, including e.l.f. Beauty, FigmaLiquid Death, Babylist, Caraway, Grease, and Cosas.

Executives at e.l.f. Beauty say the platform has increased response rates by 60% while helping the company better connect social conversations to actual sales revenue.

Credits: Fortune

The Rise of “Agentic” Marketing

Nectar’s launch comes during a broader shift toward what the tech industry calls “agentic AI” — autonomous systems capable of making decisions and completing tasks with minimal human involvement.

Instead of AI simply generating captions or ad copy, companies are now building systems that can actively operate workflows, respond to customers, monitor trends, and optimize campaigns in real time.

Investors clearly believe this could become the next major software category.

Menlo Ventures partner Amy Wu Martin said Nectar stood out because customers were already seeing immediate returns through reduced costs, faster response times, and new social commerce opportunities.

With fresh funding now secured, Nectar plans to aggressively expand hiring across engineering and applied AI teams in the Bay Area and New York while deepening its platform partnerships.

As AI reshapes the internet, Nectar Social is positioning itself as the operating system brands may need to survive the next era of online marketing.