CreativeX secures GBP2.5m Series A from Beringea to drive data-led creativity

Submitted 16/11/2020 - 10:41am

Beringea, a transatlantic venture capital firm, has led a GBP2.5 million investment into CreativeX, an AI-powered creative analytics platform used by global brands to measure the efficiency, consistency and impact of marketing and advertising content.

CreativeX, which has recently announced that it has rebranded from Picasso Labs, was founded in 2015 by Anastasia Leng, a serial entrepreneur and former Google executive. CreativeX sought to harness data to understand the performance of image and video content and it has since grown to become a cornerstone of the creative process for leading global brands including Google, Unilever, L’Oréal and Pepsi.

 
Digital advertising, particularly visual content, has become the dominant marketing format in recent years. While the pandemic has hit advertising spend worldwide, it has also accelerated the shift towards digital marketing, which is projected to account for more than half the USD530 billion global advertising industry in 2020, according to Group M.
 
Digital media’s ability to target multiple demographics across multiple platforms has created an exponential growth in the number of creative assets produced. But this has created significant challenges for brands seeking to ensure all creative output, anywhere in the world, is compliant with brand guidelines, local regulations and platform-specific best practices.
 
Not only do brands have to grapple with a complex landscape of international agencies, regulatory frameworks, and cultural considerations, they are seeking to deliver visual, engaging content that can cut through with their consumers while remaining on-brand and delivering ROI.
 
CreativeX enables marketing leaders of global brands to monitor and control the creative output of their entire international organisation in one-place and in real-time. In practice, the CreativeX platform uses computer vision to analyse image and video content, ensure that it complies with brand guidelines, media best practices, and regulatory requirements, while tracking the performance of creative assets in real-time and validating the impact of every creative decision on marketing performance.
 
Through its in-flight and pre-flight tracking of creative content, CreativeX improves the efficiency of the creative process, removing the need for manual reviews while safeguarding the brand and providing a data-driven perspective on the impact of each creative attribute. The investment round will enable CreativeX to accelerate its product development as well as expand its sales and marketing teams globally. 
 
Anastasia Leng, founder and CEO of CreativeX, says: “Since day one, our mission has been to provide the world’s best brands with technology that helps elevate and enhance their creative expression through the clarity of data. In Beringea, we found a true partner who shares our love of data and profound respect for the creative process, and we’re excited to continue building technology that more firmly embeds data in creative decisions.”
 
Eyal Malinger, Investment Director at Beringea, says: “Anastasia and her team have shown an exceptional ability to relentlessly refine a platform that now represents a vital part of the workflow of marketing teams at some of the world’s most loved brands. CreativeX now has the potential to harness the explosion in creative output and play a pivotal role in the future of advertising.”
 

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