Read the pitch deck that helped AI adtech company Qortex raise $6 million, led by Nvidia and Samsung alumni

• Qortex uses AI to intelligently target ads, which are overlayed on streaming TV and online videos.
• It is one of the first companies to tap GFT Venture’s $140 million fund, which debuted in September.
• A GFT cofounder, who led Nvidia’s investments for 20 years, was impressed with Qortex’s tech.

Qortex, which uses artificial intelligence to target ads in streaming TV, online video, and video games, announced a $6 million Series A round led by GFT Ventures on Monday.

It intends to use the funds to hire business development professionals as part of a major push to increase its client base in 2024. Silicon Road Ventures and others also contributed to the round.

Qortex’s total funding now stands at $10 million.

According to Qortex cofounder Zack Rosenberg, about two-thirds of the company’s 26 full-time employees are engineers, and he hopes to have a 50-50 split between engineers and go-to-market staffers.

Qortex was founded in 2020 as CatapultX and rebranded earlier this year.

Qortex’s technology understands what’s happening at a very granular level because it analyzes what’s happening in the video frame by frame, according to Rosenberg.

This ability impressed GFT Ventures Founding Managing Partner Jeff Herbst, who previously led Nvidia’s business development and venture investments for nearly 20 years.

“I’ve been looking at the video search field for many years and I thought that the cleverness and the ingenuity of this company figuring out a way to classify moving video was amazing,” Herbst said in an interview with Business Insider. Herbst joins former CW Network CEO Mark Pedowitz and Silicon Road Ventures Managing Partner Sid Mookerji on the board of directors.

Qortex’s AI technology analyzes video to understand the context as well as the audience viewing it, and then uses that knowledge to overlay ads.

In one hypothetical scenario, if a celebrity is shopping for shoes in a shoe store, Qortex could overlay an Adidas advertisement on top of the video because it recognizes the content. In another scenario, it might see a goalie make a save in an NHL game and serve up an Allstate ad because its slogan “You’re in good hands” corresponds to what just happened in the video.

Qortex can also serve an ad based on what it knows about the viewer, such as if that person is looking for a car.

According to Rosenberg, Qortex has two active demand-side platform clients. DSPs are pieces of software that advertisers use to purchase online advertisements. It also has current clients such as Ford, P&G, and Microsoft, as well as publishers such as Activision, NBC Universal, and Rolling Stone. Rosenberg anticipates that Qortex will add two publishers and one advertiser client by early 2024, and that the round of funding will be used to staff up in order to accelerate the company’s push for clients that year.

While Qortex currently makes money by assisting advertisers in purchasing and placing ads on videos, both Rosenberg and Herbst see Qortex’s AI being used for purposes other than advertising.

“I saw other applications for the technology, not only in basically serving up ads, but also in providing data to publishers and advertisers alike that will essentially help those people track and monitor their businesses,” Herbst went on to say.

For example, according to Rosenberg, Qortex could assist publishers in identifying strobing lights in video to remain ADA compliant, or quickly scanning video archives to find specific content.

Qortex will invest in GFT’s debut fund, which launched in September for $140 million. Herbst stated that GFT has invested in about ten companies so far, with Qortex being “one of the first and honestly one of my favorites.”

Check out some of the slides from Qortex’s pitch deck, which helped the company raise $6 million in its Series A round.

Qortex clarified that it has more than two clients on November 20, 2023.