Clouted wants to take the guesswork out of making short videos scary

It feels like short videos from podcasts, music, and movies are suddenly everywhere on TV right now, and it’s no coincidence. Companies have realized that this format provides the most cost-effective way to sell products.

Companies and marketing agencies often offer access to 30 to 90 seconds of video, known as “cuts,” only for producers. But managing the game’s staff and figuring out where to distribute these videos poses a huge challenge.

Crushedthe startup that went through a16z’s Speedrun accelerator in 2024, is creating the foundation for self-management of distribution and operations. The platform taps into a network of over 100,000 gig producers to edit videos, then uses AI to determine the best social media spots and audiences to target.

Clouted co-founder and CEO Justin Banusing began to apply the company’s skills to his passion: electronic music and festival production. As a long-time DJ, he used Clouted to promote and grow & Friends, Manila’s electronic dance music and pop-culture festival that now attracts 20,000 people.

The Clouted strategy has attracted the attention of investors. The founders have just announced a round of $ 7 million led by Slow Ventures, with participation from Gold House Ventures, Weekend Fund, Peak XV’s Surge, and others.

Unlike volume-driven marketing tools, Clouted doesn’t just chase high-quality clips. Instead, its AI uses continuous testing, testing different models and mechanisms to determine what works best. The result is that each campaign makes the next one more targeted and effective, as the system gathers data on what works.

It works like a penetration test for social media algorithms – a concept borrowed from cybersecurity, where researchers probe system defenses in an attempt to break them. Instead of looking for security flaws, Clouted’s AI and its artificial intelligence network test thousands of different types of hacking and distribution to determine what makes things infected.

“The bottom line is that every campaign Clouted runs makes the next one faster, smarter, and more effective,” Banusing told TechCrunch. “The platform learns which formats are successful, which audiences change, and which distribution channels converge over time.”

Although Clouted competes directly with similar startups such as Overlap AI in the automated cutting space, Banusing said they are looking at the big players in the ad network, especially CreatorIQ and Hightouch, as the ultimate competition. Hightouch recently crossed over $100 million in ARRmeaning that the business environment is large and growing. It is the Clouted market that is finally building.