Ahead of the weekend, Unity launched out of private beta to bring its AI influencer marketing platform to small and medium businesses who have been locked out of the market until now.
The company was founded by Patrick Ip, a former Google Innovation Lead and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and Jacobo Lumbreras, an AI engineer who has built HR and marketing automation products at Yoi Corp. The two merged their talents in advertising and AI to build Unity.
MMW also learned that Unity has raised $1 million from investors including Jonathan Berent, Director of Global Customer Experience at Google, and a former colleague of Ip’s.
Just as Google used automation to scale AdWords and create a self-serve platform, Unity is aiming to do the same for influencer marketing. The industry is growing at a rapid clip, with Instagram alone projected to reach $2 billion by 2019, according to a recent study by US agency Mediakix.
“We’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible for the influencer market as SMBs represent a massive portion of US businesses,” said Ip. “By giving these companies access to influencer marketing, we unlock millions of dollars of untapped ad spend.”
