Serbia-based creative ads automation startup Hunch raised €4M in a round led by VC fund Catalyst Romania, backed by 3TS Capital Partners, alongside co-investors Euroventures, North Base Media, SeedBlink and South Central Ventures.
The Serbian company will use the funds to triple its sales team and increase marketing investments. The investment will support their expansion plans in Europe and into the US and increase their client base.
The Hunch platform combines precise consumer personalization, dynamic creatives assembly at scale, real-time social media placement, product-feed data science and end-to-end collaboration workflow.
According to Hunch’s founder and CEO Sinisa Rakovic, the rapid rise of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok has forced many companies to rethink how to create and deliver engaging creatives and videos that also need to be personalized and contextualized.
“Over 100 global brands and agencies across Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia have successfully partnered with Hunch to deliver highly tailored creative campaigns that perform radically better and drive increased revenues through personalization. We are thrilled to have Catalyst Romania and the rest of the investor group help us accelerate our technology roadmap that will support our customers in growing their revenue faster,” Rakovic said.
With Hunch’s marketing tool, brands and their agency partners can build and deliver an exponential set of individualized journeys and personalized experiences, the company says.
So far, the Serbian company has helped its clients deliver over a billion of personalized creative assets and execute over 50 thousand personalization campaigns.
Catalyst Fund II largest round
“We are delighted to announce the largest round led by Catalyst Fund II thus far, and the first investment by the fund in the SEE region outside Romania. This sets a new benchmark for cooperation among regional funds, and also with Seedblink, the most active tech investment platform in CEE,” said Marius Ghenea, managing partner of Catalyst Romania.
The Romanian VC’s alternative investment Fund II primarily targets investments in high growth sectors including technology and internet, media and communications and technology-enabled services.
“We are impressed by the Company’s bold vision to revolutionize how advertisers can engage with consumers in more precise and actionable ways, in a privacy-first and transparent manner. We are excited to partner with Sinisa and the Hunch team,” Totia emphasized.
Regarding the next stage of its growth, Hunch also announced that it managed to attract two industry leaders to its Board of Directors: Rob Norman, former CEO GroupM North America and Craig Atkinson, former COO at Tinuiti.
Both of them will play pivotal roles in helping Hunch with growth strategies, thought leadership, as it looks to maximize its massive market opportunity, the company noted.
