AI-driven content marketing startup Instoried raises pre-Series A round from 9Unicorns

Bengaluru-based B2B content marketing startup Instoried has raised USD 1 million in a pre-Series A round led by 9Unicorns and Mumbai Angels.

The round also saw participation from London-headquartered JPIN, Jain Angel Network, SOSV, Artesian VC, Faad Angel Network, Lead Angels, among others. Last year, Instoried raised USD 500,000 as part of a seed round from SOSV, Venture Catalysts, Jain Angel Network, Artesian VC, and JPIN.

Founded by Sharmin Ali in 2018, Instoried uses artificial intelligence to understand consumers’ emotional engagement with content and helps brands build informed marketing campaigns that can forge a personal connection with the target audience and optimize marketing spends.

Instoried said its AI can also predict how a particular content would drive brand recall, lift sales, and the purchase intent of consumers. These inputs help its clients re-write their customer communication material.

With the fresh round of funding the company plans to expand operations and increase its product offerings globally. The funding will also allow the company to move to video content from text-based content, which has been its focus so far.

“We found a huge opportunity in this adversity and have scaled at a rate of 60 percent month-on-month,” Ali, founder of Instoried, said in a media statement. “Brands globally now understand and acknowledge the importance of having a strong online engagement as an absolute mandate with the new normal.”

According to Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, managing director and co-founder of 9Unicorns, AI-based content marketing is a fast-growing segment globally with a USD 70 billion market size.

“Companies across the globe have been now leveraging AI-based content to engage with their customers for better sales,” he said in a statement. “We believe that as businesses are moving online, the need for such services is likely to grow exponentially.”

Last month, another content startup, Pepper Content, raised USD 4.2 million in Series A funding, led by Lightspeed India. The content services marketplace, which brings together content creators and businesses on its platform, is also looking to expand into new categories such as audio and video content and new geographies like Southeast Asia.