The Foundry winner Huseyin Kaplan on using AI to transform creator marketing
The Foundry is a 12-week accelerator run by Foundervine with Molten Ventures and the Esprit Foundation. Judges at Foundervine’s accelerator named Huseyin Kaplan as the most promising Founder. The product leader says most direct-to-consumer brands are running creator marketing the wrong way, and he has the data to prove it.
Kaplan didn’t arrive at the problem as a first-time Founder. As a Product Manager at Wiser Media, he grew the platform from 10,000 to 200,000 users without spending on paid advertising. He now also works on the product team at SuLe, a London-based AI-native Legaltech startup. At Hult Business School, he was overall winner of the Future Mindset Challenge.
In February 2026 he co-founded Hashtag Collabz in London with Ela Diker, a former influencer who previously grew a beauty brand’s sales 100x through content marketing. Diker leads creator relationships. Kaplan leads technology, product and growth.
The volume problem
Kaplan’s diagnosis of the market is blunt. Most DTC brands still work with a handful of creators on expensive, one-off deals.
“You shouldn’t be working with five creators, but with 500, even 5,000,” he says. “And it has to happen continuously. With traditional methods, that’s impossible for most brands.”
Data from Collabz’s 200 brands and 20,000-plus creators supports him. Brands that send free products and pay creators commission on sales see up to three times the sales performance of brands paying upfront fees. “With commission, the creator is motivated by sales too,” Kaplan says. “And the upfront model needs huge budgets. The commission model needs stock and the right system.”
Diker adds a second reason: content decays. A video that drives sales in its first month rarely performs the same in the second, so brands need a constant stream of new content.
The system behind it
Running thousands of creators at once can’t be done by hand. The platform Kaplan designed uses AI to match brands with creators and tracks which content drives sales, on which platform and with which audience, so brands can test and adjust their strategy.
Ece Koprulu, the Head of Brand at Monpure haircare, whose brand uses the platform, says, “The best platform that we have used so far for our creator marketing needs.”
What’s next
Kaplan plans to expand into the new markets.
“All brands will be prioritising creator-led marketing very soon, the early adopters will be the winners,” he says.
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