Pattern89 Inc., a High Alpha portfolio company launched in 2017, has raised $2 million in growth capital, the Indianapolis-based tech company announced Tuesday.
The funding round included participation from Columbus, Ohio-based Break Trail Ventures, Indianapolis-based Elevate Ventures, Indianapolis-based High Alpha Capital, F&M Investments and Vitalize.
Pattern89, which uses an artificial intelligence-driven platform to help customers improve results from paid social media programs, has raised a total of $7.5 million in venture and growth capital since its launch.
The latest round of funding, company officials said, will be used to grow go-to-market, data science and engineering functions and expand its current product line, beginning with a software product, Predict, launched this month.
In the last two weeks, Pattern89 has hired five employees, bringing its total to 20 full-time, and officials told IBJ that the firm would hire at least 10 more employees by the end of the year. Pattern89 has recently added employees in data science, sales and customer service, and is looking to add employees in software engineering, sales and customer service.
“This funding will allow us to continue improving our technology to gain more insights into the elements that drive advertising success—like colors, video dimensions, copy sentiment and more—and empower marketers to accurately predict what will work for their digital creative, rather than guessing at what might work,” said Pattern89 CEO and founder R. J. Talyor.
Pattern89 has previously made and marketed two software packages: Optimize, which gives marketers information on what is happening with their social media campaigns, and Analyze, which looks at past results. Talyor said the new software package, Predict, uses artificial intelligence to let marketers know if a campaign will work or not before it is launched.
“Pattern89 has seen tremendous growth and success over the past year, and High Alpha is excited to be doubling down on our investment in R. J., the Pattern89 team and the future of marketing AI,” High Alpha partner Eric Tobias said in a written statement. “Pattern89 is leading marketers into the future of AI-led creative performance, which is especially critical today as COVID-19 has disrupted online behaviors and existing social algorithms.”
Pattern89 measures more than 49,000 creative dimensions across 1,300 global brands to analyze and predict what drives the best ad performance with over 95% accuracy, company officials said.
The company’s social media advertising trend data has been featured in the New York Times, Adweek and Ad Age.
Pattern89 hasn’t been negatively impacted by the pandemic, Talyor said.
“We actually believe the pandemic is giving Pattern89 a tailwind,” he said.
Since the pandemic has turned historical trend data upside down, Talyor said marketers are looking for tools to help them predict which types of ads and campaigns will work.
“It seems like the new normal changes every day,” Talyor said. “Marketers are looking for accurate predictions from machine learning to make better decisions for their brands.”
Pattern89 started its fundraising round in January and was “in the midst of considering a few different options when the pandemic hit in early March,” Talyor explained.
“We didn’t want to tie up the business in fundraising any further, so we decided to close on the insider round and go forward,” he added. “We’re in a great position for the next two years and then some. We’ve got an aggressive runway to grow. We’re in good shape to pursue our goals.”
Talyor said the company—at this point—doesn’t have any future fundraising plans.
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