MarTech startup POCKLA has raised £1.6m to scale its proprietary AI-powered content strategy and creation platform in a seed funding round.
The round was led by Venrex and other high-profile investors and advisors joining the round included The Sidemen’s VC arm Upside Ventures, Love Ventures, Shuttle and Syndicate Room.
POCKLA’s vision to help marketers and brands create like the world’s best content creators brought YouTube’s biggest group, Sidemen, to the table as investors and partners.
With over 146m subscribers, the British YouTube group is rewriting the content playbook, driving massive commercial success with multiple consumer brands and now venture capital.
The London-based firm was born out of co-founders Hugo Bibby and Rupert Boddington’s recognition of the shift in modern media and a new medium of dominant content.
Social platforms are driven by genuine, interactive, and authentic exchanges between creators and their communities, with 73% of consumers preferring short-form video when exploring products or services.
A large number of brands require greater knowledge of the processes, mechanisms, and expertise to navigate this new medium of communication.
Doing this authentically is challenging, which has been seen with the backlash larger corporate brands have received when trying to hop on to cultural moments and trends.
POCKLA bridges this gap by helping brands find their “internet voice” and identify topics and conversations their audience truly cares about with its combination of human strategy and LLM AI-driven – rather than keyword-based – approach.
These insights then drive POCKLA’s content engine, which takes brands quickly from strategy to delivery of authentic, impactful content that helps them lead conversations and build genuine community engagement.
The MarTech will use the funding to accelerate its product development and expand its team to empower brands and content creators to thrive in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.
“We back businesses that are building the future of marketing,” said Sam Uwins, director of Sidemen Entertainment Limited.
Boddington added: “Brands aren’t just competing with each other, but also against every other piece of content on a consumer’s social feed.
“Given the vast majority of this content is designed purely to entertain consumers, marketers have their work cut out trying to cut through the noise week in, week out.”