Northstar Ventures has invested £300,000 in PolyBox as part of a £500,000 round to support the development of its innovative AI marketing technology and to expand its team.
PolyBox is an ambitious young company founded by two Newcastle University graduates, Rojin Yarahmadi and Nikolaos Benopoulos, operating in the fast-paced world of automated data analysis, reporting and AI.
The total funding round was led by the North East Innovation Fund supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures, alongside Creative UK’s North of Tyne Culture and Creative Investment Programme and angel investors.
PolyBox’s data analysis and reporting tool enables marketing agencies to view data from multiple sources like Google and Meta in a real time dashboard and auto-generate PowerPoint style reports for end customers. This can not only provide on the spot insight into the return on investment of campaigns over multiple channels, but it also has the advantage of making significant savings for marketing agencies, in an era where managing costs and embracing technology are ever more critical to their success.
The funding will also allow PolyBox to invest in an AI analysis chat tool. This device will allow the integration of third-party open-source data into the model, enabling more in-depth analysis of effects on performance. PolyBox has collaborated with the National Innovation Centre for Data based in Newcastle on its technology development to date and will continue this collaboration in the next phase of development.
“The £500,000 investment we’ve acquired will be transformational for us as we undertake research and testing, growing the team and ultimately develop the product further with enhanced integrations and more,” said CEO Yarahmadi, whose startup featured on our North East & Tees Valley Startups 2.0 list last year.
“Nikolaos and I firmly believe that automation and AI will bring about a huge change in the way marketing agencies provide insights to their clients, and we’re excited to be taking this offering to the next level thanks to our investment.”
Tom O’Neill, investment manager at Northstar Ventures, said: “We are excited to invest in PolyBox alongside Creative UK, North East Combined Authority and angel investors. Rojin and Nikolaos have developed an innovative and compelling product catering to marketing agencies and will be using their expertise in AI to develop the product further over the next 12 months.
“We look forward to seeing the business continue to grow and working with the management team on the next phase of PolyBox’s development.”
Sasha Collington, Investment Manager at Creative UK, said: “We were impressed by founders, Rojin and Nikolaos, and their innovative solution to enable marketing agencies to demonstrate to their clients the effectiveness of their campaigns using a data-led approach.
“We are delighted to invest in Polybox through the North of Tyne Culture and Creative Investment Programme funded by the North East Combined Authority.”