Scowtt Secures $12 Million to Transform Digital Advertising with First-Party Data and AI
In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital advertising, Seattle-based startup Scowtt has emerged as a promising innovator with its recent $12 million Series A funding round led by New York’s Inspired Capital. Founded just last year in 2024, Scowtt has quickly gained traction with its novel approach to advertising optimization, leveraging first-party data and artificial intelligence to deliver improved campaign performance for enterprise clients. The company’s impressive growth trajectory and seasoned leadership team suggest it may become a significant player in reshaping how businesses approach digital advertising in an increasingly privacy-conscious market.
At the heart of Scowtt’s value proposition is its ability to analyze companies’ first-party CRM data to predict customer conversion potential and lifetime value. In an era where third-party cookies are disappearing and privacy regulations are tightening, this approach offers advertisers a powerful alternative that respects user privacy while maintaining or even improving advertising effectiveness. The platform seamlessly integrates with existing advertising tools, sending enhanced prediction signals to major ad platforms without requiring marketers to overhaul their current workflows or learn entirely new systems. This frictionless implementation has helped Scowtt rapidly build an impressive client base, translating to $3.2 million in annual recurring revenue despite being just over a year old with a compact team of only ten employees.
Scowtt’s technology extends beyond basic ad optimization, incorporating AI-powered interactions with potential customers, including automated meeting scheduling. This integration of marketing and sales functions points toward the company’s broader vision: becoming an “operating system for growth” that unifies traditionally siloed business functions through intelligent use of CRM data. By targeting enterprise advertisers focused on lead generation and performance-driven marketing across search and social platforms, Scowtt has positioned itself at the intersection of two major industry trends. The company is riding the wave of both the shift toward first-party data utilization and the integration of artificial intelligence as the new performance driver in paid media campaigns – a market that continues to expand, with U.S. internet advertising revenue growing by nearly 15% to reach $258.6 billion in 2024.
Behind Scowtt’s innovative approach stands a leadership team with deep expertise in the advertising technology ecosystem. Founder and CEO Eduardo Indacochea brings over 13 years of experience at Microsoft, followed by leadership positions at both Google and Meta, where he most recently served as a vice president in advertising. This extensive background with the major platforms that dominate digital advertising gives Indacochea unique insight into both the challenges and opportunities facing advertisers today. He’s joined by Abhishek Priya, who leads engineering after previous roles as director of engineering at Everlaw and as an engineering manager at Meta. Rounding out the executive team is Chief Revenue Officer Eric Schwartz, whose experience as an executive at Scibids Technology and MiQ adds further industry credibility to the venture.
The significant investor interest in Scowtt reflects growing recognition of the paradigm shift occurring in digital advertising. Beyond lead investor Inspired Capital, the Series A round included participation from LiveRamp Ventures, Angeles Investors, and Angeles Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding to $13 million when combined with its $1 million pre-seed round from last year. This capital injection comes at a pivotal moment for the advertising technology sector, as businesses grapple with increasing limitations on third-party data collection while still needing to drive performance from substantial advertising budgets. Scowtt’s approach offers a compelling solution that leverages AI to maximize the value of data that companies already own, potentially delivering better results without the privacy concerns associated with older targeting methods.
As the digital advertising industry continues to grow and evolve, Scowtt appears well-positioned to capitalize on changing market dynamics. The company’s focus on making existing advertising platforms work better rather than replacing them entirely is a pragmatic strategy that lowers adoption barriers for potential clients. By extracting more value from first-party data that organizations have ethically collected through direct relationships with their customers, Scowtt offers a forward-looking approach that aligns with both regulatory trends and consumer expectations around privacy. If the company can successfully execute on its vision of expanding beyond ad optimization into a comprehensive growth operating system, it could become an essential part of the marketing technology stack for enterprise organizations looking to maintain advertising effectiveness in a post-cookie world dominated by AI-driven decision making.
