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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis-based marketing tech firm Backstroke Inc. has landed a $2.8 million round of venture funding—the second funding round the company has secured since it launched last year.
The most recent funding round, which closed June 30 and was announced by Backstroke on Wednesday, was led by Cincinnati-based Allos Ventures, with participation from two Indianapolis-based investors: High Alpha and Ground Game Ventures. All three firms also invested in Backstroke’s initial $2 million funding round in 2024.
Also on Wednesday, Backstroke announced that it has added Jim Goldman, a long-time local cybersecurity and software expert, as its chief information security officer.
Backstroke’s software platform uses generative artificial intelligence that allows business-to-consumer companies to create customized email marketing messages at scale—sending thousands or millions of messages at once.
The platform also has predictive capabilities, meaning that it can generate many variations of a particular marketing message and also predict which variation will be most effective with which recipient.
“Not only are we going to generate [the marketing message] for you, but we’re going to generate predictive content—both images and content—in your emails, and we do that for each subscriber on your list,” said Backstroke co-founder and CEO R.J. Talyor. “What works for men might be different for women, for Gen X vs. Gen Y or Gen Z, or purchasers vs. non-purchasers.”
Marketing and AI are familiar territory for Talyor, who founded Indianapolis-based Pattern89 Inc. in 2017. That company used artificial intelligence to help marketers predict how different variations of an ad would perform. New York City-based Shutterstock Inc. acquired Pattern89 and two other companies in July 2021 for a combined $35 million in cash.
Backstroke’s other co-founders are Talyor’s wife, Allyson Talyor, who serves as the company’s lead data scientist; Egan Montgomery, vice president of marketing; and Tyler Hill, the company’s head of product and design.
R.J. Talyor declined to share current revenue information other than to say that Backstroke’s annual recurring revenue grew 447% between June 2024 and June 2025. The company also saw 375% increase in its customer count during that period.
Backstroke was named as one of 20 Startups to Watch in IBJ’s 2025 Innovation Issue in May. At that time, the company disclosed that it had earned $350,000 in revenue in 2024 and was projecting $1 million in 2025 revenue.
The company has gained early traction with companies in the fashion, beauty, pet and furniture sectors. The roster of customers listed on its website includes Indianapolis-based Homefield, which sells athletic team-themed apparel; Los Angeles-based PSD Underwear; bicycling apparel company Pearl iZUMi; running gear and apparel company Nathan Sports; women’s apparel company Lyssé; and Florida-based The Porch Swing Company.
“We’re having a lot of success on the sales front,” R.J. Talyor said. “We are getting a lot of traction with large enterprise businesses.”
In fact, Talyor said, it was this sales success that led it to add Goldman to its team.
Enterprise-scale businesses typically require their vendors to meet rigorous security and privacy standards, Talyor said, so Backstroke brought on Goldman as a consultant for that reason.
“He is a big win for us, and he is highly sought after,” Talyor said of Goldman.
Goldman’s career spans academia, law enforcement and private industry. He spent 20 years at Purdue University, where he developed the university’s programs in network engineering, information security and cyber forensics. He also served on the FBI’s cybercrime task force from 2009 through 2014.
Goldman and Talyor met when both worked for ExactTarget, the Indianapolis marketing-tech company that was sold to Salesforce in 2013.
By early 2020, Goldman had become the No. 2 security governance, risk management and compliance officer in the entire Salesforce organization. Later that year Goldman left Salesforce to co-found the Indianapolis-based cybersecurity firm Trava Security Inc.
Goldman stepped away from his CEO role at Trava earlier this year and now serves as the firm’s part-time security and compliance adviser.
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