AI Personalized Content For Brands
Salesforce Ventures is putting their money where their mouth is – a cool $100 million to be exact – on a startup called Typeface. This comes with a billion-dollar price tag on the firm, and it’s all thanks to a certain former Adobe CTO, Abhay Parasnis.
Parasnis had a dream. The dream was to use generative AI, a concept that was only just starting to get its moment in the sun, to deliver personalized content for brands, and boy, did he deliver! Typeface quickly won over the heavy-hitters, both the Fortune 500 types and tech titans like Salesforce and Google Cloud. Not only did they win their hearts, but they also opened their wallets, pouring hundreds of millions into the company.
The latest infusion of cash comes from a Series B round led by Salesforce Ventures, with a helping hand from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Madrona, GV, Menlo Ventures, and M12. This little injection brings the total raised by Typeface to $165 million.
A Platform for The Future
Parasnis has big plans for the new capital. Expansion is the name of the game, both in terms of platform growth and team size. But why all the excitement about generative AI? Well, according to Parasnis, enterprise leaders are chomping at the bit to get their hands on it. But they need a platform that’s ready for the enterprise and feels like a natural part of their brand.
The Typeface platform has three main components. It’s got a content hub where users can upload assets and guidelines, a feature called Blend that uses AI to personalize content, and Flow, which provides templates and workflows. Sounds pretty nifty, right?
Empowering The Enterprise
But what can you do with Typeface? A lot, apparently. Say you’re a content marketing manager. You could generate an Instagram post, complete with a product shot and caption, using brand-approved wording and assets. Or maybe you’re a demand generation manager at a B2B SaaS company, you could turn an event video into a blog post, draft a follow-up email, and more.
A Crowded Market
Now, Typeface isn’t alone in the generative AI space. But what sets them apart, according to Parasnis, is a focus on brand governance, content safety, and privacy. The platform provides dedicated AI models for each customer, keeping their assets and activity private. But there’s a question mark hovering over the whole thing. Could Typeface’s models, and the content they produce, run into legal trouble down the line? Only time will tell.
Despite the potential risks, the enthusiasm around generative AI is palpable. A FreshBooks survey shows that 25% of business owners are using or testing generative AI tools, and two out of three say they’ll try them within the next year.
And let’s not forget the venture capitalists. A March report from PitchBook showed that venture firms have upped their stakes in generative AI, investing billions of dollars over the past few years.
Parasnis sees a significant demand for personalized generative AI among enterprises and is ready to meet that need, stating, “We will expand our exceptional team with deep AI, SaaS, and enterprise marketing expertise to enrich the value we offer to our growing community.”
So, here’s the million (or should I say billion) dollar question: will Typeface’s bet on generative AI pay off? Well, as they say in the Valley, stay tuned.