Exclusive: Firsthand raises $26M for brand agents
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Firsthand has raised $26 million in Series A funding as it builds an AI agent platform for brands and publishers, executives exclusively tell Axios.
Why it matters: The digital advertising industry is at its next stage of evolution with the introduction of generative AI and AI agents.
Zoom in: Radical Ventures led and was joined by FirstMark Capital, Aperiam Ventures and Crossbeam Venture Partners.
- The New York-based startup previously raised $6.6 million in seed funding, led by Radical Ventures.
- Angel investors included former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt, AppNexus and Scope3 co-founder Brian O'Kelley and Horizon Media president Bob Lord.
Behind the scenes: Firsthand co-CEOs Jonathan Heller and Michael Rubenstein met at DoubleClick, the ad exchange acquired by Google. Rubenstein later helped build AppNexus, the programmatic ad platform acquired by AT&T. Heller co-founded FreeWheel, the online video ad platform acquired by Comcast.
- Heller says he met with Rubenstein in the spring of 2023 to discuss launching the startup after educating himself on AI. Their third co-founder and CTO is Wei Wei, previously an engineering lead at FreeWheel.
- "A lot of the stuff that's described as agents today is optimizing or automating marketing as it already exists," Heller says. "We think the opportunity is so much different and bigger than that."
How it works: Firsthand enables marketers and publishers to engage consumers through AI agents, which can be distributed on their own sites and on other sites as paid media.
- Firsthand also created a data and rights management system called Lakebed that helps agents work with multiple parties' data and protects that data.
- "[Agents] act as sort of guides, where they're surfacing the right information that makes sense in that moment for what that type of customer or consumer might want," Heller says.
- The company declined to disclose specific clients but said it includes top global publishers, agencies and brands.
The bottom line: "AI as a new communications medium that can fundamentally revolutionize the way that brands and consumers and publishers build relationships and communicate is the most exciting change and opportunity we've seen, I think, in our careers," Rubenstein says.
