Media Bigwigs Bet On Predictive Intelligence Platform Prophet In $5M Seed Funding

Media Bigwigs Bet On Predictive Intelligence Platform Prophet In $5M Seed Funding
Tom Fogden
By Tom Fogden



Media industry leaders, including Australia Community Media exec chairman Antony Catalano, Dentsu Creative APAC CEO Cheuk Chiang and Seek co-founder Matt Rockman, have invested in Prophet, a predictive intelligence platform that promises marketers predictive ROI on campaigns.

Lead image: Sean Taylor, co-founder and executive chairman; Jordan Taylor-Bartels co-founder and CEO; and Paul Veltman, chief commercial officer.

The business had been built for three years in stealth and this new $5 million seed investment round marks the company’s first public outing. Its overall valuation has not been announced, nor were any venture capitalist operations involved in the fundraising.

Prophet’s predictive intelligence platform enables organisations to quantify the historical return on investment of their entire online and offline marketing mix, while also predicting future outcomes against a library of thousands of macroeconomic data points; saving anywhere from 10-50 per cent of marketing spend.

The Melbourne-based company is helmed by former Hyperloop global marketing lead Jordan Taylor-Bartels and former Ogilvy and VMLY&R commerce CEO Sean Taylor. Alongside Taylor-Bartels, Prophet was co-founded by mathematician Patrick Robotham, statistician John Strumila and full-stack developer Clyde So.

“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,” said Taylor-Bartels.

“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.”

Prophet said that while market mix modelling (MMM) and econometric modelling have been in play for decades to help measure activity better, its suite of tools continue to learn and can unearth subtler and more powerful trends.

“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,” added Taylor-Bartels.

“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,” he concluded.

Catalano, meanwhile, said that the new platform was a “whole new game”.

“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.”




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