Participated · Seed · Jan 2026

Datalinx develops an AI data refinery platform that is deployed directly inside a customer’s data environment to convert messy, disparate data into structured, high-quality assets. The product relies on purpose-built ontologies, context-engineered agents, and an AI-assisted workflow to automate data cleansing and enrichment. By delivering governed data products, the company enables downstream applications such as analytics, personalization, and media measurement while maintaining data quality and compliance. Customers benefit from improved data usability without sacrificing control or privacy. With its newly raised capital, Datalinx plans to scale operations and meet growing demand for AI-ready data infrastructure. Financial or user metrics were not disclosed in the press coverage, and the business is still at an early, seed-stage development phase.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2026

Founded in 2022, Marketecture Media began as a niche podcast producer and has expanded into a multifaceted business-to-business platform spanning podcasts, newsletters, video series, online communities and live conferences. Its content portfolio includes "The Marketecture Podcast," “AdTechGod,” and newsletters such as “The Refresh,” “Monopoly Report,” and “Marketecture.” To deepen its coverage and audience reach, the company completed six acquisitions in 2025, adding assets like Adland.tv’s archive of TV spots and the Serial Marketers community. Marketecture also runs the AI Marketers Guild community and offers the AI-powered news reader Maddb.ai, underscoring its focus on emerging technologies. Live events are a growing pillar: after two sold-out Marketecture Live conferences, the firm expects roughly 1,000 professionals at Marketecture Live III in March 2026, produced with Adweek and TVREV. Revenue and user figures were not disclosed, but the firm cites a “rare combination of high-quality content, industry expertise, and human connection” as its value proposition. Its new capital will support further organic growth and additional acquisitions.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2025

Newton Research provides intelligent AI agents that perform marketing analytics at scale, reducing the cost and manual work required for sophisticated analysis. Its multi-agent systems cover audience analysis, planning and buying, campaign measurement, 360-degree audience analysis, multichannel campaign orchestration, incrementality testing, marketing mix modeling and attribution, and can be customized to real use cases. Agents are trained on real-world marketing scenarios, work with a company’s own data and an ecosystem of integrated data partners, and learn and improve over time. Built for brands, agencies, publishers, data companies and technology companies, Newton aims to empower marketing professionals to make data-driven decisions. The company, based in Boston, MA, announced an oversubscribed $9 million Series A to fund further development and expansion. The founding team—John Hoctor, Matthew Emans and Steven Bennett—has prior entrepreneurial exits and experience building media analytics businesses.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2025

Swivel (formerly PilotDesk) offers a no-code AI workflow automation platform designed to remove repetitive work in ad operations and account management. The company focuses on AI-driven orchestration, unified analytics, and seamless integrations with ad servers, DSPs, SSPs, and OMS platforms. Swivel says its automation engine has already produced measurable results — in a deployment with LG Ad Solutions it performed over half a million automated actions, equating to roughly 25,000 hours of manual ad-operations time saved and moving from pilot to a long-term partnership. The team includes co-founders Joe Hirsch, Matt Dearborn, and Rich Lin, plus President Frans Vermeulen and CTO Geir Magnusson Jr., bringing deep adtech and technical experience. The company rebranded from PilotDesk to Swivel as it shifts to building more intelligent systems to eliminate the need for staff to "swivel-chair" between multiple ad platforms and to enable automation in revenue operations at scale. Funding announced in April 2025 will support team growth and accelerate product development focused on deeper AI orchestration and integrations. UnVale is a platform for storytellers to develop entire worlds of content, enabling writers, illustrators, and animators to grow an audience and publish long-form work in serialized pieces. The product breaks down long-form content into easy-to-digest releases so creators can expand their fanbase with each update. The company positions itself as an alternative to short-form influencer-focused social platforms, emphasizing public worldbuilding and story craft. Operating metrics cited in the announcement include 150k users (700% growth year-to-date), 1M pieces of original content, and 3M social interactions (28x growth YTD). UnVale said the $1M pre-seed raise will accelerate growth through 2025. The company is actively hiring backend engineers and aims to use its momentum to help creators self-publish and signal audience interest to publishers.

Participated · Series A · Mar 2025

Firsthand offers an AI-powered brand agent platform that enables brands, marketers and publishers to attract and engage consumers. Its Lakebed™ data and knowledge rights management solution lets partners define what Brand Agents can access and ensures cooperating AIs preserve ownership and control of intellectual property. Some of the world’s largest brands and publishers are already using the platform, and the company reports rapid growth. Firsthand plans to use the new funding to expand its product and grow the team, with intentions to double its workforce by year’s end. The business is led by Jonathan Heller, Michael Rubenstein, and Wei Wei and is based in New York City. Firsthand provides a platform that enables brands and publishers to build and distribute AI agents anywhere consumers seek information. The agents are embedded with a company’s protected knowledge, tasked by owner-defined goals, and measured by those goals to drive 1:1 personalized conversations and contextual content presentation. The platform is split into Lakebed, an AI rights and data management layer that gives content owners control over where and how their knowledge is used, and generative marketing agents that use approved content for personalized, in‑moment interactions. Firsthand positions this tooling as a way for companies to control distribution of their content on and off their digital properties and to avoid dilution or misrepresentation by larger tech platforms. The company emerged from stealth and announced a Seed round led by Radical Ventures. Firsthand is conducting a pilot program with a select group of brands and publishers and was founded in 2023 by Jonathan Heller, Michael Rubenstein, and Wei Wei.