AI marketing startup Billy Grace raises 2.3 million euros. Fortino invests in Dutch startup.
AI marketing startup Billy Grace raises 2.3 million euros. Fortino invests in Dutch startup.
AI marketing startup Billy Grace announces it has raised an investment of 2.3 million euros. Investors include Fortino Capital and several angel investors, including Raymond Spanjar, Floris Rost van Tonningen (Hyves), David Vermeulen (Inner Circle) and Patrick de Laive (The Next Web). The investment will be used to further scale nationally and internationally. Billy Grace helps companies increase the return on investment of online ads.
Automating ad optimization
Mitch Voskuilen, CEO and founder of Billy Grace, explains how Billy Grace was ‘born’:
“We were working as online marketers and were looking for a way to optimize digital ad spend. Many fellow marketers we talked to struggled with the same challenge and found it difficult to extract actionable insights from the massive amount of data. We discovered that AI was better at optimizing ads and discovering which marketing dollar brings in a new customer. That's how Billy Grace was born.”
Since launching the startup in the summer of 2022, the company has been growing rapidly. Companies such as Vanilia, Intersport Twinsport, TrainMore and Patta use the platform to manage digital ads.
Wouter Goossens, Investment Director at Fortino Capital: “Billy Grace makes use of a couple of important trends. Many marketing teams are struggling with staff shortages and struggling with the attribution of campaign funds. It's often guessing which channels are driving growth. Billy Grace offers automation through AI and is highly scalable. It is now used by both traditional companies and young startups. We look forward to helping Billy Grace and the team scale (inter)nationally.”
Well-known angels and Fortino
In addition to Fortino Capital, angels are investing in Billy Grace with quite a track record in entrepreneurship and marketing. These include Raymond Spanjar and Floris Rost van Tonningen (founders of Hyves and IEX), Patrick and Robert Jan de Laive (The Next Web), David Vermeulen (Inner Circle), Higinio Raventos (Google Spain/Portugal), Dennis Goedegebuure (eBay, Paypall and Airbnb) David Wyler (Tinder) and Quintin Schevernels (former Funda-CEO).
Mitch Voskuilen: “We have spent years building Billy Grace, testing our platform with a limited number of partners and are now ready to scale. We benefit from the fact that companies are curious about the possibilities of AI. Marketing teams that use smart automations have more time for the work in which people make a difference, such as creativity and human contact. I think we are only just discovering the possibilities of AI. In a few years, every marketing team will be using AI to make their marketing 'smarter.'”
About Billy Grace
Billy Grace was founded in 2021 by Robin Friend, Mitch Voskuilen and Tjadi Peeters. Billy Grace's platform lets companies collaborate with self-learning algorithms (AI). Through the platform, marketers can better track, attribute, analyze, automate and optimize the effectiveness of online marketing within and across channels. In this way, the startup enables marketers to free up more time for tasks in which people make a difference. More on www.billygrace.com.
