Clouted

We're thrilled to share we've closed our $7M seed round led by Slow Ventures to define the next era of modern marketing with Distribution Intelligence. This week we revealed to the public our virality engine that's already generated over 1B+ views across 250+ campaigns in just the past 6 months, a model that proves how content at scale truly works in an algorithmic-first world. Read more about our announcement below. 👇 Justin Gorriceta-Banusing Adriel Yong David Constantine Viray Eric Aaberg Julian Chow Shi Deng Kairui Zeng

Big milestone for Clouted, announcing a $7M seed led by Slow Ventures, alongside an incredible group of global investors and operators. We first backed the team through Antler at a very early stage, drawn to their technical depth, speed of execution, and clear understanding of how distribution is evolving in the AI era. Excited to keep supporting the team as they build the future of distribution intelligence 🚀

We just raised $7M for Clouted to rethink modern marketing for every artist, brand, and creator. Being a DJ myself, I always found I had to play two jobs: a performer and a marketer. After each show, I couldn't enjoy the moment of feeling accomplished without immediately thinking of how I was going to market my next one. And the truth is - that's the struggle MANY artists go through these days. Social media has become so necessary, that EVERYONE has had to become a publisher/marketer in some sort of capacity. This is why we created Clouted. To make content at scale more autonomous and intelligent, so you don't have to spend countless hours stressing over how you're going to sell out your next show - because we'll do that work for you. Our platform handles all distribution for you, as well as building a context layer that compounds overtime from all of your campaigns. Huge shoutouts to Slow Ventures (Sam Lessin and Jack Raines) for leading this round, as well as thanks to AppWorks, a16z speedrun, Peak XV Partners, Antler, Hustle Fund, Weekend Fund, Z Venture Capital, Gold House, Alumni Ventures, Gondor Capital, NonPublic, Iterative and Ventures Together. More importantly, we are assembling a bench of angels who are deep into distribution including Gokul Rajaram, Ben Parr & Matt Schlicht, Henry Shi, Andrew Yeung, Andrew Tan, Brandon Hoffman, Bernard Leong, Will Kim, Will Baumann and Mike G.

🚨 BREAKING: Clouted raises $7M for the next era of modern marketing: distribution-first. In an algorithmic-first world, being just social-first won't cut it anymore. Many artists, creators, and even brands are finding themselves having to post more frequently and more quickly to just break through the brand noise on social. As someone who did socials + content for brands like Riot Games, Dallas Cowboys, OpTic Gaming, and more - I know what it's like to turnaround 5-10 short-form videos/day manually... but what if you could do that at scale in the dozens, hundreds, and even thousands (automatically)? We've built the infrastructure layer automating mass content operations as well as building Distribution Intelligence. Just since October, we've generated over 1B+ views across 250+ campaigns, synthesized hundreds of thousands of clips, and have been building data on winning formats at scale. People are starting to see distribution marketing (Clipping, UGC, and Fan Pages) become more mainstream, but what's different here is a context layer for all of your content that is forever compounding. Excited to be building this alongside the team, we're just getting started. Justin Gorriceta-Banusing Adriel Yong Shi Deng David Constantine Viray Julian Chow Carlneil Domkam Sheanne Eric Cabantac

a16z speedrun literally changed our lives. More than just funding (because you can find that anywhere nowadays), here's what I found the most helpful for Clouted. 1. Mentorship: Access to high-touch, dedicated help from the entire firm. Seriously, you don't get this anywhere else. Working with Troy Kirwin, Samira Behrouzan, Andrew Chen and the entire Andreessen Horowitz team is awesome. 2. Community: Building startups is tough, but with speedrun you get to meet so many other awesome founders + operators at the same stage as you (and learn off/with them). 3. Credits: Insane amounts of credits/savings through their partners. We probably would've run out of money from compute + AI costs alone if speedrun didn't exist. 4. Demo Day: The grand finale of presenting and pitching your team's hard work in front of a full room of interested investors. No one else does this like speedrun. Apps are competitive, but there's never been a better time for you to pitch and put your best foot forward. If you're applying (or considering) and want any advice before submitting - feel free to send me a message! Also a scout, so happy to make direct intros to the team. :) #startup #marketing #advice

I spent three years on the investor side of the table watching founders pitch. Then I became the founder pitching. The thing that surprised me most: the investor mindset and the partnership mindset require completely different instincts, and I had to unlearn one to get good at the other. As an investor, I was evaluating trajectory. Is this team moving fast enough? Is the market real? Can they tell a coherent story about where this goes? As a founder building partnerships, none of that matters to the person across the table. What matters is one question: will this make my job easier or harder? The shift that actually moved things for us: stop pitching Clouted and start talking about what happened when we worked with specific artists. Specific results. Specific workflow changes. The delta that appeared. Nobody buys a platform. They buy a version of their problem being smaller. Took me longer than it should have to really internalize that.