Media and agency figures are among lead investors in Australian startup Prophet ,a predictive intelligence platform which can run mathematical modelling in near-real-time.
The company has launched with $5 million seed investment and a plan for a solution to the end of cookies.
The Melbourne-based tech play is headed by former Hyperloop global marketing lead Jordan Taylor-Bartels and former Ogilvy and VMLY&R Commerce CEO Sean Taylor.
Prophet was also co-founded by mathematician Patrick Robotham, statistician John Strumila and full stack developer Clyde So
Among investors is ACM's Antony Catalano, executive chairman of View Media Group.
"I've seen a number of tech innovations over the past two decades and our operations through our own national media group demonstrates more than ever the importance of media, marketing and organisational accountability and measurement. Prophet is on a whole new level,” he said. “It isn't just a game changer, it is a whole new game”.
Dentsu Creative APAC CEO Cheuk Chiang and tech entrepreneur Matt Rockman, a co-founder of jobs classifieds site SEEK, are also investors.
Jordan Taylor-Bartels, CEO of Prophet, said every business leader wants to make marketing budgets more efficient but this is constrained by existing tech.
“For a long time now, marketing teams have had to resort to using data that doesn’t provide truly up-to-date information and doesn’t meaningfully assist predictive modelling and extensive scenario planning,” he said.
“We’ve taken sophisticated mathematical processes that represent a very real, long-awaited advantage for marketers, and packaged them in a platform that basically any brand decision-maker can use and understand. Marketing teams that don’t embrace Prophet will soon risk being left behind by competitors.”
Taylor-Bartels said that any business with a significant marketing or advertising spend should be preparing to adapt.
“Prophet isn't just a dashboard that shows you plain analytics with a date slider. We have developed a living, breathing piece of intelligence that ingests data daily and provides users the most accurate, up-to-date insights possible,” he said.
“We achieve this with cutting-edge mathematics developed by academic and commercial resources to ensure that marketers and the broader organisation can make the right decision with little to no delay. This is a quantum leap compared to existing market-mix-modelling tech.”
“Our testing to date has demonstrated Prophet can save businesses anywhere from 10 to 50 per cent on marketing and ad spend by accurately demonstrating what’s working, and where budgets should be diverted for maximum impact.
“There’s clearly an appetite for this breakthrough, too; raising $5 million for a new platform in this market is hard at the best of times, and we’ve managed to achieve that pre-revenue.”
Agency veteran Sean Taylor, co-founder and executive chairman, said the three years of development of Prophet has been an extraordinary journey.
“Having been in the advertising and media world for more than 30 years, I’ve never seen a tool that has the ability to allow clients to make better decisions on the media spend with such clarity, so simply,” he said.
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