Viralspace.ai is joining forces with Smartly.io

At Viralspace.ai, our mission has always been to help digital marketers make data-driven decisions about their ad creative using AI. Today, we’re excited to announce that we are joining forces with Smartly.io to accelerate this mission.

In 2019, the three of us met at a Stanford University class called Startup Garage. Through the class, we spoke to hundreds of marketers and discovered the thesis that would drive Viralspace.ai: The #1 factor that drives performance on digital ads is the creative (source), yet creative optimization today is done primarily through guessing and checking. In the last decade, marketers have developed a huge appetite for data-driven tools as bid and audience optimization became commonplace. This left creative optimization as the next frontier.

Over the next two years, we partnered with brands like TechStyle, Ogilvy, Chubbies, and Minted to build and test our products, and brought on investors like Village Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Quest Venture Partners and Switch Ventures to help us grow. Around 9 months ago, we announced the general availability launch of our core products and quickly saw incredible results like consistent 70%+ lifts in ad performance. This performance was made possible by machine learning models built custom to each brand and proprietary AI technology that allows us to customize at scale.

As we entered 2021, Viralspace had a rapidly-growing 6-figure ARR, $1.6MM in venture capital raised, and 3 incredible employees: Jake, Austin, and Palash. We were ready to raise another round of funding. Just as we received our first term sheet, we were approached by Smartly.io for an acquisition. It was a perfect match: Smartly.io is a 700-client, 500-person company that has built the leading social advertising automation platform. We learned about their powerful media optimization tools and their early forays into the creative intelligence space. We learned that we work with the same types of companies and even have shared clients. We ultimately realized that we share a common vision to marry creative, media and data to help digital marketers make the most data-driven decisions about their ads.

On May 13, 2021, we closed the deal to join forces with Smartly.

Viralspace.ai is just getting started. With Smartly, we’ll remain an independent business line as we scale faster alongside Smartly.io’s resources, client base, and strong vision. We will continue to offer Viralspace.ai products for years to come, and will soon augment our technology with Smartly.io’s powerful advertising tools to help clients deliver even more effective and engaging ads.

Thank you for coming along the journey with us all these years. We could not be more excited to introduce ourselves for the first time as Viralspace.ai — a Smartly.io company.

Best,

Hiro Tien, Apoorva Dornadula, Michelle Lu
Co-Founders of Viralspace.ai

Read the official announcement here.