Agentio, the world’s first AI-powered ad network for sponsored creator content, launched today with $4.25 million in preliminary funding. Craft Ventures and AlleyCorp co-led the round, with participation from other institutional investors such as Antler, Protagonist, and Permanent Capital.
Neal Arthur (Global CEO of Wieden+Kennedy); Cody Ko (Mega-creator); Rory Paterson (Global Vice President of Media, Expedia Group); Jeff Ragovin (Co-Founder Buddy Media /Salesforce); Michael Sugar (Academy Award-winning producer); Steven Galanis (Co-Founder of Cameo); and Elizabeth Cutler (Co-Founder, SoulCycle and Peoplehood), among others, are strategic investors.
Arthur Leopold, former President and first employee at Cameo, led all go-to-market functions and scaled the celebrity talent marketplace that generated $500M in sales, and Jonathan Meyers, a former engineer and manager at Spotify who led the Automated Content Marketing team that generated multi-million monthly active user outcomes using AI/ML, co-founded Agentio. The partnership has now built the first automated ad platform for creator content, beginning with YouTube creator-led sponsored content ad readings and capitalizing on the team’s intimate knowledge of the challenges that both creators and marketers confront.
Until recently, the process of linking creators and marketers was manual and labor-demanding and was mostly done offline at substantial expense to both parties. Agentio’s technology now enables purchasing sponsored content as simple as purchasing Facebook and Google advertising. Agentio hopes to transfer a significant portion of the $300 billion digital ad expenditure market to high-performing, creator-led ad readings by automating a previously unscalable process. Agentio is launching on YouTube with 30+ second creator-led ad readings, capitalizing on an underpriced and under-monetized ad unit with plentiful inventory from top creators. The team will then aggressively extend into other advertising channels.
“Marketers need a performant and scalable ad channel now more than ever,” says Arthur Leopold, Co-Founder & CEO of Agentio. “We’re thrilled to partner with leading VCs, marketers, and creators to finally scale this ad unit and drive real, measurable business outcomes through underserved and undervalued attention on YouTube.”
The Agentio ad platform provides marketers with direct access to a premium network of producers with highly engaged audiences. By providing marketers with a superhuman grasp of creativity, its patent-pending AI technology automates creator and brand matches applicable to a brand’s audience. Agentio also gives producers greater liquidity and revenue by allowing them to list their inventory in real time, allowing brands to auto-bid on accessible ad inventory in seconds. Agentio’s groundbreaking technology enables marketers to significantly scale their creator initiatives without incurring new bandwidth costs.
“Agentio’s platform is an industry-first, utilizing predictive models to match creators and brands seamlessly,” explains Jonathan Meyers, Co-Founder and CTO of Agentio. “With access to first-party ad performance data and a machine-level understanding of creator content, our product’s ability to deliver authentic and performant ad reads through end-to-end automation, is highly-contrarian and will completely transform the way sponsored ad content occurs across various social channels.”
“Creator-led marketing is one of the most effective ways to advertise, but the challenge is scaling these programs across platforms,” said Craft Ventures partner Bryan Rosenblatt. “Agentio is constructing a standardized, scalable platform that combines the simple, modern ad buying experience that marketers have come to expect with the magic of matching the right creator with the right advertiser.” This is something that many of our portfolio firms have requested, as well as something that the advertising industry as a whole requires.”
Agentio has already launched a beta version of the platform with top YouTube-sponsored content spenders and creators. Agentio will use the funds to expedite product development and its go-to-market strategy with creators and brands.
“We are thrilled to back Agentio and firmly believe that the Agentio team is poised to reinvent how sponsored content is built, bought, and sold,” says Susannah Shipton, Partner at AlleyCorp. “In the same way that DoubleClick revolutionized display advertising (and eventually built the infrastructure for ad content on the internet), we expect Agentio to build the new infrastructure engine for sponsored content – a much larger market opportunity.” Just as crucial, we believe that adopting Agentio will be a huge time and budget saver for artists and marketers, allowing them to spend more time doing what they do best: generating enduring content that engages audiences all over the world.”