Brandtech announces new Global CFO and $115MM raise to accelerate lead in Gen AI

Former Lazard International CEO Matthieu Bucaille joins Group as CFO, following $115MM Series C raise as the Group continues to widen the gap in its lead in generative AI in marketing

New York, New York, 28 March 2024: The Brandtech Group announces today that Matthieu Bucaille, ex-CEO Lazard International, has joined the company as Global Chief Financial Officer. Bucaille joins following an illustrious 25+ year career at financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard, with several senior roles including Global CFO of publicly listed Lazard Ltd. (NYSE LAZ) from 2011 to 2017.

Founding partner and the Group’s current Global Chief Financial Officer, Jean-Marc Antoni, will retire into a part-time advisory role from January, 2025.

Bucaille joins the group following a $115MM Series C raise to build on the Group’s substantial market-leading position in Generative AI, by further scaling and making additional investments and acquisitions.

This news comes as Pencil, Brandtech’s Gen AI marketing platform, was named this month by Fast Company as one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies (“This AI platform has made and modeled a million ads”) – the only Generative AI marketing company to be recognized.

The Brandtech Group was launched in 2015 with a founding belief that all marketing could be done better, faster and cheaper using technology. Machine-generated content and AI were founding pillars and several of Brandtech’s launch pronouncements ruffled feathers1.

Over the years Brandtech invested in AI chatbots (2016), AI media planning (2016), AI data (2017), and AI ‘mind twins’ (2018), which included an AI version of Deepak Chopra, ‘Digital Deepak, ’unveiled in 2021. The Group’s AI investments culminated in the acquisition of 100% of Pencil, founded in 2018, and the only generative AI marketing company that has made over 1MM gen AI ads and is powered by $1BN in media spend across 5,000 brands, enabling it to predict performance as well as generate marketing assets. Typically, Pencil’s ads are 10x faster, with 2x better performance than a brand’s usual baseline, as well as being significantly cheaper.

The Brandtech Group has grown dramatically with an average annual organic growth rate of over 20 percent since launch, to become the largest global digital content and generative AI partner for many of the world’s biggest brands, technology platforms and companies. It works with eight of the world’s top 10 global advertisers and 49 of the world’s top 100.

Incoming Brandtech Group CFO Matthieu Bucaille says: “David presented the original Brandtech deck to me in 2015 and told me how artificial intelligence and technology was going to change marketing beyond all belief – it’s been remarkable to watch that happen, despite so many people dismissing it at the time, and to see how they have built the #1 Gen AI marketing group in the world. The opportunity to join this adventure is particularly exciting at a time when you realize how challenged the old legacy ad business model is going to be and how perfect Brandtech’s timing and model is in comparison. I relish partnering with David, Jean-Marc and the Brandtech team to play a key role in the disruption of marketing.”

Brandtech Group Founder and CEO David Jones says: “When OpenAI founder Sam Altman provocatively said, “AI Will Handle “95%” of Marketing Work Done by Agencies and Creatives,” the traditional legacy industry was up in arms. We, on the other hand, said: “That’s exactly why we built the Brandtech Group.” The mobile phone made everyone a creator – gen AI makes everyone an ad agency – that may not be very good news for traditional legacy agencies with 100,000 employees, but it’s going to be great for the world of marketing in general. Gen AI is going to profoundly change, not just every aspect of marketing, but the whole of business. I couldn’t be more excited to have Matthieu join and partner with me to accelerate our lead in the gen AI marketing space. It’s going to be a wild few years! Jean-Marc has been the most incredible co-founder, I’d like to thank him for his immense contribution.”

Brandtech Partner and Head of Emerging Technologies Rebecca Sykes says: “We’re seeing incredible momentum as our large enterprise clients move into a phase of real, practical adoption of Gen AI, revolutionizing some of the most painful aspects of marketing quickly, relevantly and at unprecedented scale. Part of our approach has been in helping clients overcome their fears and embrace the space safely, through sharing our knowledge amassed since 2018; our legal/ethical frameworks; negotiating best-in-market terms with all the leading foundation models as well as demonstrating technical mitigations built into our own tool, Pencil.”

Outgoing Global CFO Jean-Marc Antoni says: “I am very proud of what we have achieved so far – it has been a truly remarkable and exciting journey to date building Brandtech. I am happy to hand over my Global CFO position to Matthieu, who brings the right skill set for the next growth stage which will be built on Gen AI. I will of course remain a Founding Partner forever and will continue to support Brandtech as much as needed.”

Bucaille’s new role begins immediately.

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