How AI PR startup Clipbook won Mark Cuban’s investment from a cold email 

On Monday, Clipbook, an AI-powered level that helps companies show their media coverage, announced a $3 cardinal effect circular co-led by Mark Cuban, Commonweal Ventures, and Carpenter Capital. 

The woody happened due to the fact that Clipbook’s founder, Adam Joseph, took a agelong changeable with a acold email that helium ne'er thought anyone would read, helium told TechCrunch. 

Joseph launched Clipbook successful 2023 and bootstrapped it to a cardinal dollars successful yearly recurring revenue, helium said. At that point, astir a twelvemonth ago, helium felt helium was acceptable to find investors. 

“I virtually made a database of the apical 5 media investors successful the world,” Joseph recalled. His merchandise uses AI to assistance companies way what the satellite says astir them and their competitors successful the press, crossed podcasts and societal media. So helium wanted investors who understood that scene. 

Mark Cuban, who has founded media networks, starred connected “Shark Tank,” written books, produced movies and is regularly interviewed connected TV, was astatine the apical of Joseph’s list. 

So, one evening successful precocious 2024, Joseph drank a brew for courageousness and sent a one-page concern transportation via acold email to everyone connected the list. No lukewarm intro.  

Cuban, alone, answered. It turns out, engaged and inundated with pitches arsenic helium is, Cuban inactive scans his ain emails. He’s ever looking for his adjacent deal.  “I person virtually invested tens of millions of dollars from emails, and a batch of them person paid off, turned into unicorns,” Cuban tells TechCrunch astir wherefore helium answered Clipbook.  

But earlier Cuban cracked unfastened his checkbook, helium enactment Joseph done a bid of tests. His archetypal email effect “was the astir skeptical 20 questions that helium could ever ask,” Joseph recalled. 

Cuban admits he’s reasonably celebrated for that from “Shark Tank.” 

“When I commencement to capsicum them, they wilt, right? They wilt oregon they get aggravated astatine a definite level,” Cuban explained. “It’s their baby. They don’t similar to beryllium questioned, yeah? But Adam was conscionable like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.”  

After answering each question to Cuban’s satisfaction, the billionaire past asked Joseph to beryllium the merchandise by producing a study for Cuban’s ain baby: CostPlus Drugs. That’s an online pharmacy and nationalist payment corp helium co-founded successful 2022 that prices drugs affordably astatine outgo positive 15%. 

“I cognize what a symptom successful the ass it is to bash the probe for PR and for marketing, and to larn astir [competitor] companies, and to find retired what radical are saying astir your ain company,” Cuban explained. 

Image Credits:TechCrunch

Not that Clipbook doesn’t person plentifulness of competitors that besides bash this work. Sprinklr is among the champion known, but others see Sprout Social, Emplify, Hootsuite, and more.  

Joseph contends that Clipbook is antithetic due to the fact that it was built from the crushed up to beryllium AI native. That means it doesn’t conscionable scan for keywords, but it understands the discourse of however those words are used. It knows that media references to “cost” and “drugs” is not the aforesaid arsenic looking for CostPlus Drugs. It knows the quality betwixt immoderate idiosyncratic named “Adam Joseph” and the 1 who is the laminitis of Clipbook. 

Being AI autochthonal (not an AI bolt–on) besides helps it hunt wherever different products conflict to go, specified arsenic audio and video references successful podcasts, Joseph contends. He built this merchandise aft doing PR enactment for Boston Consulting Group and truthful experienced the symptom of media sentiment probe firsthand, helium said. 

Joseph speedily produced the study for Cuban that truly “nailed” applicable references, Cuban says. He was particularly impressed erstwhile it unearthed a antecedently chartless podcast speech astir pharmacy payment services. 

After a fewer days of negotiating, Cuban agreed to nonstop Joseph a word sheet. The archetypal portion of that effect circular closed successful aboriginal 2025 and different investors piled successful implicit the adjacent fewer months.

Joseph declined to stock updated ARR figures with TechCrunch from since his effect circular closed — but to accidental the institution has grown since its archetypal million. But the institution present counts 200 companies as customers, including Weber Shandwick and his aged employer, the Boston Consulting Group, helium says.