An AI guru? Startup luminary Sam Kroonenburg raises $5.5 million for new startup Cuttable

The rise of artificial intelligence is like “Star Trek is becoming real” and the chance to build a new startup in this space is “too good to pass up”, according to leading Australian tech entrepreneur Sam Kroonenburg.

This new startup is called Cuttable and on Tuesday it revealed it has raised $5.5 million in a seed funding round led by prominent venture capital firm Square Peg.

Rampersand also participated in the round, alongside strategic angel investors.

Kroonenburg, who co-founded A Cloud Guru with his brother Ryan Kroonenburg and went on to sell it for more than $2 billion in 2021, first got involved with the AI startup as an investor, before becoming a co-founder alongside Jack White, co-founder of Sunday Gravy, and former Swisse marketer Ed Ring.

He will now step into a co-CEO role with White, while Square Peg co-founder and partner Paul Bassat will join Cuttable’s board.

Cuttable describes itself as a “first-of-its-kind automated content agency” that aims to marry creative advertising with AI to create high-quality digital ads at scale.

The startup’s goal is to help both marketers and agencies meet a growing demand for more personalised, and powerful, digital content.

The Star Trek reference comes from an interview he did with The Australian Financial Review (AFR), but Kroonenburg elaborated further when speaking to SmartCompany.  

“It’s about doing what was once impossible, seen as science fiction,” he explains.

“Cuttable can enhance creativity, optimise ad performance, and streamline the production process. Solving effective digital advertising is a scale problem. More messages, more personalisation, more targeting – automating the creative is a big part of that solution, it’s now possible with AI and automation.”

Like the world of sci-fi, Kroonenburg says Cuttable represents “a new frontier in advertising, where technology and creativity converge to deliver unparalleled results for marketers and agencies”.

“The opportunity at Cuttable was too good to pass up,” he said in a statement also provided to SmartCompany.

“I first came on board as a first investor, but as I got closer, I saw how much of a role automation and AI can play in advertising”.

Cuttable is already working with Woolworths-owned brand Catch.com.au, and OnePass, and counts the likes of Medibank, Nando’s, Penfolds, Powershop, and DiDi among its clients. 

It has also begun developing its next AI feature, which it is tentatively calling “the brand brain” and promises to give marketers the ability to translate a brief into a live ad within a few clicks.

Backing Cuttable founders’ expertise and “grit”

Cuttable currently employs a team of 15, who work out of the startup’s office in South Yarra, Melbourne.

“Cuttable reminds me a lot of the early days at A Cloud Guru, where we have a small, passionate team with divergent experiences all building from the ground up – focused entirely on how we can help the customer using technology,” Kroonenburg tells SmartCompany.

Both Square Peg and Rampersand highlighted Kroonenburg’s, White’s and Ring’s deep experience in tech and advertising as one of the reasons why they have backed Cuttable.

“Over the last year, we have spent a lot of time with the Cuttable co-founders and were excited by their combination of deep domain expertise, tech acumen, grit and laser focus on using AI to fundamentally reshape advertising,” said Square Peg’s Bassat.

Similarly, Rampersand partner Taryn Pieterse commented on the trio’s “deep sector expertise and strong track record of creating cutting-edge solutions”.

“Cuttable offers a compelling new solution with the potential to transform how agencies and marketers advertise on digital platforms. AI and precision technology continues to push the boundaries on what’s possible in traditional advertising, and the Cuttable team are at the forefront of this change,” Pieterse said in the same statement. 

Kroonenburg’s success with A Cloud Guru has been well-documented.

The online learning platform was founded in 2015 to help IT professionals re-skill in cloud technology. It raised $46.8 million in 2019 and was described by AirTree partner James Cameron as  “one of the fastest-growing companies we’ve worked with” before the founders sold it to US workforce development company Pluralsight.

Meanwhile, Cuttable itself was spun out of White’s advertising agency, Sunday Gravy.

White said in the statement that while some advertising agencies may fear the advent of AI, a tool like Cuttable could help “every agency and brand return to the glory days of advertising, when they could both spend the time needed to craft the big brand idea”.

“We know the financial savings Cuttable creates for marketers can be reinvested into creating bigger brand opportunities moving forward,” he added.  

“Brands and agencies can now create their own digital advertising and content with Cuttable, and what would typically take weeks or months to create now takes just minutes”.

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