Linkby secures $15M to expand hybrid PR and affiliate platform in North America

Australian startup Linkby has raised $15 million in a Series B funding round to expand its performance-based PR and affiliate marketing platform, with an eye firmly set on accelerating its North American growth. The round was led by Boston-based Volition Capital, marking the growth equity firm’s first Australian investment.

Founded in 2020, Linkby connects brands with a network of more than 600 publishers, offering what it describes as “performance-based editorial” — paid media content that publishers write in their own style but which brands can track for downstream results like clicks, traffic, or conversions.

Linkby’s pitch sits at the intersection of PR, branded content, and affiliate marketing. The company says it aims to make editorial coverage more measurable and directly tied to performance metrics traditionally associated with lower-funnel advertising.

Linkby’s international expansion is already well underway. The company reports that 55% of its revenue now comes from the U.S., where its business has grown by up to 100% year-over-year in recent quarters. To support this growth, Linkby co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer Adrian Fagerlund will relocate to New York, which serves as the headquarters for its North American operations.

CEO and co-founder Chris Wirasinha, who previously co-founded Pedestrian.tv, said the fresh capital will help double the U.S. go-to-market team to over 40 people and expand the company’s local engineering and product teams in Australia.

While Linkby’s approach is sometimes compared to sponsored content, Wirasinha says the company’s model gives publishers editorial control and ensures posts carry the publisher’s voice and perspective — closer, he argues, to traditional PR than advertorial.

Brands can choose the format, such as a product review or promotional news piece, but publishers control the angle unless factual corrections are required. The stories are then amplified through Linkby’s platform, and publishers are paid on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis rather than per sale — an approach that Linkby says appeals to media companies wary of unpredictable ad revenue streams in a volatile digital publishing climate.

“Publishers today are looking for revenue models that feel reliable, especially with declining traffic from search and new threats from generative AI,” said Annabelle Close, head of affiliate at sex toy brand Lelo, which uses Linkby’s network for performance campaigns.

Linkby’s Series B will also fund new AI-driven tools, including an upgraded recommendation engine and optimization features to help brands identify the best publisher partners and allocate budgets more efficiently. The company says it is positioning itself at the forefront of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — an emerging approach to optimize content for AI-driven search tools.

Wirasinha added that with more than 3,800 brands using Linkby to produce over 42,000 features with partner publishers, the company has built a rich dataset that can train its machine learning models for better campaign recommendations.