Uplane wants to replace marketing agencies with AI and just raised $4.5 million in seed funding.
The San Francisco-based startup has a platform that allows brands to launch and test ad campaigns on digital channels such as Meta, Google, TikTok, and LinkedIn, and direct ad spend to the channels that perform best. Uplane also allows clients to launch and test website landing pages.
Clients can upload their own ads or use Uplane to create AI-generated visuals. Uplane works with text and video ads.
The startup’s seed funding round was led by Play Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, 20VC, Rebel Fund, and Multimodal Ventures.
Julius Körfgen, Lukas Vollmer and Marvin Abdel-Massih founded Uplane in November. They target companies that spend more than $100,000 a month on digital marketing and charge an annual fee. So far, clients include Aonic, the wellness company co-founded by Kim Kardashian’s personal trainer. Wagetap, an Australian fintech company. and Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s railway.
Overall, Kofgen says his clients have seen a 30% improvement in return on ad spend over about six weeks compared to agency performance. In Aonic’s case, the improvement in profitability was 60%.
Kerfgen said that with Uplane, Deutsche Bahn can now do the same work that its major distributors used to do in a fraction of the time.
“They are literally taking away from them many or all of the campaign tasks that we currently manage,” he said.
Anton Bachmann, general partner at Play Ventures, said the company was impressed by Uplane’s early signs of success proving a return on ad spend.
Two of Uplane’s founders come from performance marketing backgrounds
Kolfgen said he got the idea for Uplane while working with Abdel Massi at Empal, a German performance marketing company. He realized that AI could improve the measurable work he was doing, from creating ads and landing pages to tracking and improving performance. They partnered with Vollmer, who was starting a new company.
“At each of these steps, AI can do the job faster and better than humans,” Kofgen said. “And right now, only really large marketing teams can accomplish this.”
Many agencies and marketing companies offer solutions similar to Uplane, including investment-backed companies like Smartly and startup Pomo.
Uplane is limited by AI capabilities. For example, the company doesn’t yet offer audio as part of its ads. Its focus is on measurable outcomes and not supporting the brand’s overall strategic direction or story. Using an external agency can also give your brand a valuable independent perspective.
Uplane plans to use the new funding to expand its 15-person team, acquire new customers, and integrate with more advertising platforms.
See the pitch deck Uplane used to secure $4.5 million in seed investment. Shared exclusively with CMO Insider.