Cuttable secures over $5 million investment
Recently-launched AI-driven advertising agency Cuttable, which was originally created within the confines of independent creative agency Sunday Gravy, has secured an investment of over $5 million from venture capital company Square Peg.
Co-founded by Paul Bassat, Square Peg is no stranger to investing in the creative tech space, having previously backed Canva, Airwallex, and New York-based Rokt.
Bassat heard about Cuttable from its co-founder and co-CEO, Sam Kroonenburg, whom he previously knew through Kroonenburg’s tech entrepreneurial background, and jumped at the opportunity to support the team, with a $5.5 million seed fund. He has also joined Cuttable’s board.
The agency has also received support from another venture capital fund, Rampersand, and several other strategic investors.
Cuttable is described to make the ad creative process quicker and more seamless, in just a few clicks. Alongside Kroonenburg, its co-founders are Sunday Gravy’s Jack White and ex-Swisse marketer Ed Ring.
“We’re really excited to back Sam, Jack, and Ed in their vision to transform how brands tell their stories and acquire customers,” Bassat said.
“Over the last year, we have spent a lot of time with the Cuttable co-founders and were excited by their combination of deep domain expertise, tech acumen, grit and laser focus on using AI to fundamentally reshape advertising.”
White described the Square Peg team as impressive and accomplished, and said its an honour to work with them: “We first met Paul, Jethro and the team a year ago and felt an instant chemistry. We couldn’t be prouder to call them our partners.
“Their backing, along with that from Rampersand, is a profound endorsement of our vision and a signal of a promising long-term partnership,” he said.
“But we wouldn’t be here without our clients at Catch.com.au, OnePass, Medibank, Powershop, Penfold’s, and DiDi, and Nando’s who were on board from the start. They share the same pioneering attitude we have at Cuttable.
“Everything we build is for our clients, and today’s funding announcement only strengthens that commitment,” White added.
The Cuttable team has expanded with technology and development specialists from online learning platform, A Cloud Guru, which Kroonenburg founded, and sold in 2021 for more than $2 billion.
The Cuttable team
“Cuttable represents a new frontier in advertising, where technology and creativity converge to deliver unparalleled results for marketers and agencies,” Kroonenburg said.
“The opportunity at Cuttable was too good to pass up. I first came on board as a first investor, but as I got closer I saw how much of a role automation and AI can play in advertising.”
Cuttable has also recently welcomed former Medibank marketer Sam Ayre as its new head of marketing, as Mumbrella revealed earlier this month.
He has made the move to lead the agency’s marketing efforts and to help deliver more connected marketing funnels for brands.
“Having been a client of Cuttable at Medibank, I saw firsthand the incredible impact Cuttable’s unique offering can have on a marketing team,” Ayre said at the time.
“We were looking for a partner to help us with the messy middle as they call it, the consideration and conversion content that we were struggling to do effectively and at the craft needed; it’s where we brought on Cuttable.”
White acknowledged that some advertising agencies might feel threatened from the use of AI, but stressed that shouldn’t be the case.
“Cuttable’s aim is to enable every agency and brand to return to the glory days of advertising,” he explained.
“When they could both spend the time needed to craft the big brand idea. We know the financial savings Cuttable creates for marketers can be reinvested into creating bigger brand opportunities moving forward.”
Meanwhile, Ant White, also co-founder of Sunday Gravy, shared his support for the business: “In the current economic climate, businesses can’t afford to create brand and retail campaigns. Cuttable provides a tech solution to scaling content, while Sunday Gravy’s model compliments this by approaching production differently, to make sure brand assets can be applied to any Cuttable format without eroding the brand story.”
The agency has also begun development on its next big feature, tentatively titled ‘The Brand Brain’, which will launch later this year.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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