An artificial intelligence (AI) startup that allows business to business (B2B) companies to create “hyper-personalised” marketing campaigns, has secured £4m in pre-seed funding.
Userled’s platform aims to automate the creation and distribution of highly personalised marketing campaigns across various channels, including email, LinkedIn and Meta.
The round was led by early-stage venture capital fund Localglobe, with participation from Dig Ventures and a roster of angel investors.
The AI startup was founded in 2023 by seasoned entrepreneurs Yann Sarfati and Tristan Saunders, both with experience in the tech industry from companies such as Salesforce and American Express.
Userled’s funding will allow it to expand its team and continue developing its AI-powered technology, which is already used by the likes of Wayflyer, Deel, Onfido and Encord.
Co-founder and chief executive Sarfati, believes there is a need for tools that make personalised marketing simple and scalable.
He said: “Marketers have to put significant time and resources into manually building personalised campaigns which feel impossible to scale. They lack the tools that should enable them to do this simply and at speed to surpass the impact they can achieve through manual campaigns.
Userled co-founders Yann Sarfati and Tristan Saunders
“Userled breaks this cycle. We’re making personalised marketing easy, accessible and efficient to give B2B companies the competitive advantage they need in today’s ever-shifting digital landscape,” he added.
Userled’s platform operates without reliance on third-party cookies. Instead, it uses a proprietary Cookieless Fingerprinting and Identity Layer, offering marketers a full view of customer behaviour at the account and contact level. The company says it is compliant with GDPR and CCPA rules.
Mish Mashkautsan, partner at Localglobe, said: “Userled brings the power of generative AI to reshape a complex and mission-critical workflow for marketing teams.
“By accelerating the creation and distribution of personalised content and capturing contact-level insights without cookies, Userled provides a seamless solution to drive efficient growth – a key priority for any B2B company, especially these days,” he added.
Many consider AI to be a key tool that will change the marketing industry and that businesses should embrace its power, especially those that have limited resources like startups.
According to a recent survey of 2,000 budding entrepreneurs by Venture Planner, 78 per cent said they would be open to using AI tools to help them kick-start their business.
S4Capital, the digital advertising and marketing services company founded by Sir Martin Sorrell, is also investing heavily in AI tools to help boost its customer offering.