Cortex: Artificial Intelligence for Social Media Marketing Delivered by Boston Startup
With the founding of Cortex, two life-long friends and long-time business partners are bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning to social media marketing.
Meet Brennan White and Matt Peters for the first time and you’ll think they might be twins. The second time around you’re sure to mistake one for the other. They know it. They understand it. More so, they embrace it (White once caved and played the role of Peters on night two of a conference after a prospect mistook him for his look-a-like business partner).
White and Peters are co-founders of the newly launched Boston-based startup, Cortex, creator and provider of artificial intelligence for social media marketing. By automatically ensuring content is seen by the largest possible audience, and by providing deep creative insight on content themes and types, Cortex ensures posts maximize their marketing returns.
Having met during their early childhood days in Weston, MA, White and Peters, whose physical builds and mannerisms are eerily similar, have built much more than a strong friendship over the past 20-plus years.
In 2007, after Peters moved back to Massachusetts from Atlanta, where he had worked in film an Television for everything from major motion pictures to small TV commercials, he reconnected with White who was working in tech sales with Burlington, MA based Centive.
While talking shop one evening (likely over a bourbon), they quickly realized they had similar views on marketing and advertising. Peters had recently worked on a $1MM Georgia Lottery Commercial and White watched his company fail spectacularly as they tried to make a $105k viral video about excel spreadsheets.
Having theses specific experiences they both saw how badly others were dealing with the new space of viral media and realized how they could provide solutions.
“There were all these new technologies and capabilities. We knew how to use them effectively and they didn’t,” White said.
While working out of Peters’ mother’s basement they began sourcing prospects on LinkedIn and quickly secured their first client in mid 2007 to the tune of $7,000.
Their first company, Pandemic Labs, was born.
Parlaying the success of the first client they landed a six-figure contract with a large non-profit and several renowned brands, such as PUMA and Dunkin Donuts, soon followed.
White and Peters would go on to grow this social media marketing agency to the great success. Today, under new leadership (White and Peters both sit on the board), Pandemic Labs is an internationally renknowned, multi-million dollar social agency employing a staff of 20 full-time and 15 contractors.
Evolution from Agency to AI and Machine Learning
In 2013, with the growing interest around artificial intelligence and machine learning across various industries, White and Peters began exploring the movement for social media marketing and started collecting data.
Pandemic Labs, working with global brands, was already gathering and analyzing key metrics around social media. White and Peters took this data, looked at it in new ways and found a way to put it to use for a business of its own.
Cortex would be created after realizing existing tools focused entirely on analytics and process management, selling patchwork solutions to small social problems, rather than solving the fundamental underlying issue in social: complexity.
In 2014 Dimitry Kudryavtsev (former Senior Software Engineer at DataXu) was discovered on FounderDating and recruited by White and Peters to serve as Cortex’s VP of Engineering and help get the product where it is today.
In March of this year, Cortex came out their two-year stealth period and announced $500,000 in funding. White, CEO, had the following to say at the time:
“We’re helping companies get more return from their time and investment in social. As a powerful efficiency software, Cortex helps social media managers and agencies be more productive while enjoying work more. Our average customer has seen a 400% increase in engagement and seven hours per user, per week of time saved. By creating more effective and creative social media content, we are making marketing less intrusive and more enjoyable for consumers. The outcome is targeted, timely, and welcomed.”KM Stella Investments, a Boston-based angel fund founded by Matias and Kate Stella, was part of the $500k round. I asked Matias what brought them to buy into the startup:
“Kate and I were immediately impressed with the team’s background and character. After all, we’re investing in a team first and foremost. We also know that they have had great success with Pandemic Labs, so we are confident they can leverage their existing relationships to help get Cortex up and running quickly. Bottom line, they are disrupting the existing model by providing a one stop solution utilizing artificial intelligence for social media marketing. It’s a game changer that will free up marketers to do what they do best, which is developing creative content.”
Experience Cortex
Using Artificial Intelligence, Cortex handles the planning and execution of social media.
As the company puts it:
“You know your brand best. You know your brand’s messaging. You write great copy and make great images. Provide the content and let Cortex take care of the rest.”
The client dashboard is simple and intuitive. Take a look at your calendar “Foresight,” (as it’s called within) and Cortex highlights specific time slots in which a brand should push its content, as well as the type of content (photo, video, etc) that should go out. Furthermore, it uses sophisticated predictive algorithms to plan which posts should be promoted.
Cortex uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to design and execute an optimized social plan based on a brand’s historical marketing performance and the data of its competition. Tell Cortex your needs and goals and the software can operate autonomously for as long as you continue loading in content.
Because of the two-year stealth period and collaboration with Pandemic Labs, who also served as the company’s first client, Cortex has the data points necessary for this type of automation.
At the time of launch, Cortex was functioning strictly for Facebook. Today, the company is launching for Twitter — a big move for the early-stage SaaS startup.
“With the expansion to Twitter, we’ve taken another major step towards Artificial Intelligence across social media as a whole,” Peters, CRO, said of the move. Adding, “every new platform we release on takes away the need for brands to use other social media tools, and increases the effectiveness of our AI algorithms.”
White tells me Pinterest and Instagram are next on the hit list and should be available in the next two months.
Along with implementing new platforms and additional automation features (i.e., optimizing advertising spends), Cortex, who currently works with dozens of brands including HomeGoods, EverdayHealth and a global hotel brand, is “focused on building partnerships with agencies and large enterprise brands,” White said.
While pricing wasn’t disclosed, Cortex operates on a SaaS model with monthly subscription fees and long-term contracts.
It would be interesting to get in as a user, now, in the early stages of Cortex. Artificial intelligence and machine learning for social media marketing is coming — why not get in on the ground level and grow with the movement, while reaping the business benefits at the same time?
If White and Peters keep their track record intact, it won’t be long before our social media efforts are completely automated. Thanks to two look-a-like business partners and life long friends, we’ll all be able to focus a lot more time on creating great content and less time ensuring that content is seen and enjoyed by as many people as possible.
Josh Boyle is Director of Marketing & Community, VentureFizz. You can follow him on Twitter @jb_sid and keep up with his latest posts by signing up for the VentureFizz Weekly Email!
Originally published at venturefizz.com.
