Seattle AI startup Gradial secures USD $13m funding boost

Gradial, a Seattle-based AI startup, has secured USD $13 million in Series A funding to enhance its platform that facilitates AI-powered marketing operations for enterprises.

The funding round is led by Madrona, with participation from Pruven Capital, General Advance, Outsiders Fund, and DLA Piper, lifting Gradial's total capital raised to nearly USD $20 million. The announcement comes as the company reports a 30-fold year-on-year revenue growth during 2024 and anticipates a growth of over 200% in the first quarter of 2025.

The startup intends to use the newly raised capital to expand its Seattle-based team from 20 to 40 employees, which will enhance product development and customer acquisition efforts.

Gradial focuses on streamlining the marketing operations of enterprises through its agentic AI platform, which addresses inefficiencies in the content supply chain—a challenge that many enterprises face. Doug Tallmadge, Co-Founder and CEO of Gradial, said, "Marketing teams have poured substantial resources into producing more content, but their operational processes just can't keep up with that volume and complexity. That's why we built Gradial. Marketing should operate at the speed of thought, and we want to empower the marketer to spend less time thinking about the process and more time thinking about outcomes for the customer."

The platform automates several processes including content authoring, ticket routing, and campaign management and quality assurance tasks. This approach aims to deliver efficiencies for marketing departments traditionally reliant on manual processes.

Arising from a pool of talent including alumni of SpaceX, Microsoft, and Point72, Gradial has developed a suite of AI agents that now serve a strong cadre of industry customers and partners, such as AWS, Adobe, dentsu | Merkle, EPAM Systems, Slalom, and Infogain.

Daniel Knauf, Chief Technology Officer of Merkle Americas, spoke to the impact of Gradial's technology, stating, "Gradial agents are revolutionary for enterprise marketing operations. They accelerate enterprise content supply chains while increasing quality and compliance, by replicating nuanced and complex decision making." Knauf added, "Marketing teams can then reclaim substantial resources and redirect them to strategic initiatives. In an era of doing more with less in digital marketing, Gradial cracks the code on the operational bottleneck that's been holding back even the most sophisticated marketing organizations. It's not just automation—it's agentic orchestration that actually understands your brand."

The company highlights that its platform already provides measurable benefits to several Fortune 500 companies. Gradial's solution is designed for seamless integration with existing marketing operations, working alongside tools such as Adobe Experience Manager, Figma, and Workfront. It enables marketing teams to automate various tasks at a global scale, thereby optimising resources and improving return on investment.

Matt McIlwain, Managing Director at Madrona, emphasised the impact Gradial is making in the sector, saying, "Among AI startups, Gradial stands out for the impact they're already delivering for enterprise clients—users love the product, and businesses are seeing a compelling ROI. Gradial is leveraging unstructured and structured data and business processes to deliver an intelligent workflow automation engine for marketing operations. They've identified a massive untapped opportunity by combining leading AI technologies and strong partnerships to bring solutions to some of the largest enterprises in the world."