November 19, 2024
We are thrilled to announce that Agentio has successfully secured a $12 million Series A funding round led by Benchmark, marking a significant step forward in our mission to revolutionize creator-led advertising. Benchmark, one of the most iconic and top-performing venture firms of all time, has led early investments in other category-defining companies such as Uber, Instagram, eBay, Twitter, Dropbox, HeyGen, Sierra, Cerebras, Optimizely, Grubhub, OpenTable and many others.
This is Benchmark’s first investment in the creator economy and adtech - a powerful signal pointing to the opportunity at hand. Craft and AlleyCorp, who led our $4.25M Seed round, doubled down on their belief in our ability to transform the future of advertising, and industry-leading marketers and creators also joined the round. This latest investment, which brings our total capital raised to $16.25 million, fuels our vision to simplify and amplify the effectiveness of advertising through authentic, creator-driven content.
Since our last update, when we celebrated our Seed round, Agentio has not only grown in scale but also in capability. Our proprietary AI technology now powers seamless connections between many of the world’s most innovative brands and leading creators, facilitating creator advertising on YouTube that is as easy as purchasing ads on major platforms like Google and Meta. Brands such as DoorDash, Mint Mobile, Bombas, and MasterClass have leveraged our platform to unlock a performance marketing channel that previously did not exist at this scale. We are experiencing 2,000%+ year-over-year growth, as many advertisers on Agentio see 4x-15x better ROAS through creator integrations bought on Agentio, compared to other digital video ads.
The Series A funding will allow us to expand our brand and creator network, scale our platform capabilities, and introduce integrations with additional social channels starting in 2025. Our platform's automation and analytics are transforming advertising processes, turning what once took weeks into mere minutes, thus enabling our clients to focus more on strategy and optimization, rather than manual and tedious processes.
The future of advertising is undeniably creator-led. Creators tell a brand's story authentically to their engaged audiences, which is why on Agentio, brands can buy the most effective and efficient content integrations (today, solely on YouTube, but soon, across platforms) as simply as they buy Meta or Google ads. This is the future of marketing—not more banners, display, or skippable video ads. Before Agentio, this future wasn't possible, as buying creator/influencer content was too cumbersome to scale. We're excited to meaningfully shift paid media budgets to creators for the first time, unlocking exponentially larger budgets than creators have historically tapped into.
We want to extend our deepest gratitude to our innovative brand partners and the incredible creators who have joined us on this journey. Your commitment to exploring new ways of engaging with audiences has been instrumental in proving the effectiveness of our platform and the performance of creator integrations on YouTube. Your willingness to lean into this new model is paving the way for a seismic shift in how advertising is done, making it more authentic and impactful.
Sean Frank, CEO of Ridge, succinctly captures the unique value of YouTube creator integrations as an advertising channel. His perspective underscores the ongoing relevance and superior engagement that YouTube delivers, which is central to our approach at Agentio:
As we continue to expand and revolutionize the advertising industry, we are on the lookout for world-class operators to join our team. If you're passionate about changing the landscape of digital advertising and creator content, we would love to hear from you. Explore our open positions here on LinkedIn.
If you’re an advertiser looking to break into a highly-performant, scalable, and underappreciated channel - please book a call with us; and if you’re a creator looking to easily partner with the world’s best brands, join our Waitlist.
