San Francisco–based startup GIGR, operating under the product name Playad, has raised $5.4 million in pre-seed funding to tackle one of digital marketing’s most stubborn problems: how slow, fragmented, and expensive ad creative production still is—even in an era of AI-everything.

The round was led by BRV Capital Management and Mirae Asset Venture Investment, with backing from a notable group of angel investors, including Bora Chung (board member at Krafton and former Bill.com executive), Jihun Yu (founder of Hyprsense, acquired by Epic Games), and Krew Capital. The funding will be used to accelerate development of Playad’s AI-driven marketing agents, which aim to help teams create, test, and improve advertising creative with far less manual effort.

From tools to workflows that actually learn

Despite an explosion of creative tools, most marketing teams still operate in a stop-start cycle: briefs move to designers, revisions bounce across teams, and performance data is reviewed after campaigns are already live. Insights arrive late, and applying them to the next creative round often feels more like guesswork than science.

GIGR’s bet is that the next leap in marketing performance won’t come from adding yet another point solution. Instead, it will come from an AI-native workflow—one that treats creative as a continuous learning system rather than a series of one-off assets.

Playad is being built as a multi-agent marketing workflow that spans the entire creative lifecycle: briefing, production, experimentation, measurement, and iteration. The idea is simple but ambitious: every campaign should generate signals that directly inform what gets built next, tightening the feedback loop between performance and creation.

Why Playad is starting with interactive ads

Playad’s initial focus is interactive advertising, particularly playable ads popular in gaming and app marketing. These formats have long been valued for their ability to drive higher conversion rates at lower cost per install, largely because they let users experience a product before committing.

More importantly, interactive ads generate richer performance signals than static formats. Taps, swipes, and in-ad choices reveal not just whether a creative worked, but how users engaged with it. That level of granularity makes iteration far more actionable.

Industry data suggests that playable ad performance hit record highs in 2025, reinforcing the growing importance of interactive formats. Yet they’ve remained difficult to scale. Historically, interactive ads have been slow to produce, expensive to maintain, and heavily dependent on specialized developers—putting them out of reach for many marketing teams.

Playad is designed to remove those constraints. By automating much of the production and iteration process, the platform aims to make interactive ads fast enough to test continuously and simple enough for marketers to own directly. Teams can rapidly create variations and A/B test them without the usual development bottlenecks.

Beyond playables: an AI-native creative platform

While interactive ads are the entry point, GIGR is positioning Playad as a broader AI-native creative system. The platform is being built to support image, video, and interactive formats within a single workflow, allowing teams to apply learnings across channels instead of treating each format as a separate effort.

“Marketing performance increasingly depends on how quickly teams can learn from creative—and act on it,” said Steve Chung, co-founder of GIGR. “We’re building AI agents that make iteration the default, so teams can apply what’s already working across the market to their next creative without sacrificing quality.”

That philosophy aligns with a broader shift in MarTech toward experimentation velocity. As paid media costs rise and targeting options narrow, creative has become one of the few remaining levers marketers can pull to improve ROAS. Faster learning cycles can translate directly into competitive advantage.

Speed is the hook; confidence is the payoff

According to GIGR, customers often adopt Playad to move faster—but stick around because of what that speed enables. Teams can ship more iterations, run more experiments, and close the loop between creative decisions and performance outcomes.

Early users have reported dramatic reductions in production costs—up to 90% in some cases—alongside measurable improvements in acquisition efficiency. Those gains aren’t just about doing more with less; they’re about reducing uncertainty in creative decision-making.

“We’re not trying to simply produce more assets,” said Jay Cho, CEO and co-founder of GIGR. “We’re building a system where every launch creates learning—and that learning directly improves the next creative decision.”

That emphasis on learning over output is notable in a market crowded with AI tools promising speed alone. If Playad can consistently translate performance signals into better creative decisions, it could point to a new category of AI-driven marketing systems—ones that don’t just automate tasks, but actively shape strategy.

The bigger picture for MarTech

Playad’s funding arrives at a moment when marketers are reassessing the role of AI in creative workflows. Generative tools have lowered the barrier to producing assets, but many teams still struggle to connect creation with outcomes. The promise of AI agents that manage iteration end-to-end—brief to performance to next build—speaks directly to that gap.

Whether GIGR can scale that vision beyond early adopters remains to be seen. But the focus on interactive formats, experimentation velocity, and measurable learning suggests the company is aiming at a real pain point, not just a flashy demo.

For now, Playad is positioning itself as a reminder that in modern marketing, creative isn’t just about inspiration—it’s about iteration, signal, and speed.

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OuterBox is pushing deeper into vertical-specific performance marketing. The Ohio-based digital agency, backed by private equity firm WILsquare Capital, has acquired GRO Marketing, a specialist agency serving multifamily, student housing, and senior living communities. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition marks another step in WILsquare’s steady buildout of a scaled, yet independent, performance marketing platform—and signals growing investor confidence in niche-focused digital agencies that combine sector expertise with measurable results.

A vertical bet on residential communities

GRO brings domain depth that complements OuterBox’s broader performance marketing capabilities. Known for its work with residential community property managers and ownership groups, GRO has built a reputation around performance-driven campaigns and a high-touch, “white-glove” client model—an approach that mirrors OuterBox’s own positioning.

For OuterBox, the deal strengthens its foothold in residential real estate marketing, a segment that continues to show resilient demand despite broader economic uncertainty. Multifamily, student housing, and senior living operators face constant pressure to drive occupancy and leads efficiently, making performance marketing less discretionary than in many other industries.

“GRO’s specialized knowledge and history of driving incremental results for clients make this a highly strategic addition to the OuterBox platform,” said Jeff Allen, CEO of OuterBox, pointing to strong cultural alignment as a key factor behind the deal.

Private equity’s platform play continues

From WILsquare Capital’s perspective, the acquisition fits neatly into its roll-up strategy. GRO is the firm’s fifth addition to its digital marketing platform, following earlier acquisitions of OuterBox (2022), Trinity Insight (2023), TopSpot (2024), and Accelerated Digital Media (2025).

Andrew Scharf, Managing Director at WILsquare Capital, highlighted the appeal of the residential community vertical, describing it as a market with “stable and growing demand drivers” for marketing services. In a fragmented agency landscape, that kind of predictability is increasingly attractive to investors looking to scale specialized capabilities under a shared operational umbrella.

Unlike some private equity-backed consolidations that prioritize cost-cutting, WILsquare’s approach appears focused on expanding coverage and expertise—allowing acquired agencies to retain their identities while benefiting from shared resources and scale.

What it means for GRO—and its clients

For GRO, the deal represents a chance to accelerate growth without abandoning its core philosophy. Founder and CEO Matt Pavlick will join OuterBox as an investor and Senior Advisor, a move that suggests continuity rather than disruption for existing clients.

“Joining OuterBox empowers us to unlock new levels of growth and performance,” Pavlick said, emphasizing GRO’s long-standing focus on delivering tangible results rather than chasing volume.

That continuity may matter more than ever. As performance marketing becomes increasingly complex—driven by platform changes, privacy regulations, and rising competition—clients in housing-related sectors are likely to favor partners with both scale and deep vertical understanding.

A broader MarTech signal

The deal underscores a broader trend in MarTech and digital services: specialization is becoming a growth strategy, not a constraint. While generalist agencies struggle to differentiate, firms with clear vertical expertise are proving easier to scale, easier to sell, and more defensible in competitive markets.

With GRO now under its umbrella, OuterBox is positioning itself not just as a performance marketing agency, but as a platform with credible depth across high-value industry segments. For WILsquare, it’s another calculated step toward building a diversified yet cohesive marketing services portfolio.

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Jeep is entering 2026 with a clear message: capability doesn’t have to come with a premium price tag. The iconic SUV brand has unveiled “Jeep Things,” a new global marketing and advertising campaign designed to spotlight its latest price repositioning—alongside expanded standard features and significant price reductions across its 4x4 lineup.

The campaign launches with a 60-second hero spot running across Jeep’s social and digital channels, supported by a 30-second broadcast version that began airing during recent football games. Together, the spots aim to reset perceptions around what Jeep ownership costs—and what customers get for their money.

Pricing as a brand statement, not just a promotion

Unlike traditional automotive campaigns that focus narrowly on incentives or short-term discounts, “Jeep Things” frames pricing as part of the brand’s identity. The campaign follows Jeep’s announcement of new starting prices across its SUV range, combined with a sharper focus on features and technologies customers value most.

According to the company, the updated lineup delivers an average of more than $4,000 in added value per vehicle. Some models, including the Jeep Grand Wagoneer and Grand Cherokee, now offer as much as $10,000 in additional value through pricing adjustments and enriched standard equipment.

For Jeep, this repositioning is about removing a long-standing tension in the market: the assumption that serious off-road capability is inherently unaffordable.

“‘Jeep Things’ isn’t only a thrilling reminder of all the amazing ways that Jeep brand drivers can blaze their own path,” said Olivier Francois, global chief marketing officer at Stellantis. “It also serves as an opportunity to let our fans and followers know that they shouldn’t be confusing capability and unaffordability.”

A campaign built on brand mythology

Creatively, “Jeep Things” leans heavily into the brand’s cultural shorthand—those unspoken moments Jeep owners instantly recognize. The voice-over moves quickly through a mix of humor, grit, and Americana: unexpected wildlife encounters, questionable grooming decisions, mud-as-exfoliation, and the kind of freedom that treats gravity as optional.

The message is clear without being preachy. Jeep isn’t selling luxury polish or status signaling. It’s selling experiences—often messy, occasionally uncomfortable, and unmistakably authentic.

One of the campaign’s sharpest lines draws a direct line between brand values and pricing strategy:
“Making a Jeep vehicle for only people with cash like him? Not a Jeep thing.”
“Making adventure affordable? Now that’s a Jeep thing.”

That framing positions affordability not as a compromise, but as a feature—arguably one of the most important ones in a market where vehicle prices have steadily climbed.

A strategic reset for the Jeep portfolio

From a product perspective, the campaign reflects broader changes across Jeep’s SUV lineup for 2026. CEO Bob Broderdorf emphasized that the company has rethought both pricing and content across every nameplate, from the entry-level Jeep Compass to the flagship Wrangler.

“For 2026, across our entire Jeep SUV lineup, we have smarter pricing and a sharper focus on the features, content and technologies Jeep customers care about most,” Broderdorf said. “Every nameplate now brings more substance, more technology, and more Jeep authenticity for the money.”

That emphasis on “authenticity” matters. Jeep has spent decades cultivating an image rooted in freedom, exploration, and utility. By tying pricing directly to those values, the brand is attempting to protect its core identity while expanding its appeal to more cost-conscious buyers.

Marketing meets a milestone year

The timing of “Jeep Things” is also symbolic. In 2026, the Jeep brand celebrates its 85th anniversary—a milestone that will be marked by yearlong product and marketing initiatives, including Wrangler Twelve 4 Twelve and Gladiator special-edition Convoy campaign drops.

In that context, the campaign reads as both a celebration of heritage and a recalibration for the future. Rather than leaning solely on nostalgia, Jeep is using the anniversary as a platform to modernize how it talks about value, access, and relevance in a crowded SUV market.

The broader market signal

Jeep’s approach reflects a wider shift in automotive marketing. As consumers grow more price-sensitive and skeptical of premium positioning, brands are under pressure to justify cost through tangible value, not abstract lifestyle promises.

By anchoring its campaign in pricing transparency and feature richness—while still delivering humor and emotional resonance—Jeep is attempting to bridge that gap. It’s a reminder that strong brand storytelling doesn’t have to ignore economic realities; it can incorporate them directly.

If successful, “Jeep Things” could do more than move metal. It could help reposition Jeep as a brand that understands the modern buyer: one who still wants adventure, freedom, and capability—but also wants to feel confident they’re getting real value for their money.

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Flodesk, the design-first email marketing platform favored by creators and small businesses, is quietly redefining what growth looks like in the crowded MarTech landscape. The company has crossed $36 million in annual recurring revenue and helped its members generate more than $33 million in revenue—without venture funding, aggressive enterprise sales, or feature bloat.

Instead, Flodesk is doubling down on a simple idea: in a noisy inbox, design is not decoration—it’s a growth lever.

Over the past year alone, Flodesk users sent more than 13 billion emails and added 314 million new subscribers to their lists. Those numbers underscore both the platform’s scale and the enduring importance of email at a time when social reach feels increasingly fragile.

Owning the channel—and the brand

For many entrepreneurs, email remains the only marketing channel they truly control. Algorithms don’t decide who sees the message, and reach doesn’t vanish overnight. Yet most email platforms still force users into a tradeoff: powerful but painfully technical tools on one end, or easy-to-use but visually generic templates on the other.

Flodesk built its business in the space between those extremes. Since launching in 2019, the bootstrapped company has focused on helping non-designers create emails that actually look like a brand—not a default layout with a logo slapped on top.

That positioning has resonated with a growing creator economy. Flodesk counts over 100,000 members, including well-known names like food writer Michelle Tam, Miss Excel founder Kat Norton, and The Everygirl media group. For these businesses, aesthetic is not a nice-to-have—it’s central to how they stand out and monetize.

Design-first, now AI-native

Flodesk’s next phase leans heavily into AI, but with a notable twist. Rather than using AI to churn out generic copy, the company is positioning it as a creative collaborator.

Its newly announced email builder blends agentic chat-based editing with precise manual controls. Users can generate on-brand emails in seconds, then fine-tune layout, fonts, and content to match their personal style. The AI doesn’t just write—it designs, guided by Flodesk’s proprietary design system.

That’s a meaningful distinction in a market flooded with AI tools that prioritize speed over identity. Flodesk’s system connects its AI models directly to its design infrastructure, effectively teaching the AI to behave like a personal brand designer rather than a copy generator.

The leadership update reinforces that vision. Co-founder Rebecca Shostak has been named CEO, while co-founder Martha Bitar moves into the role of Executive Chair. Shostak, a designer by training, has been instrumental in shaping Flodesk’s visual language and product philosophy.

“Our mission has always been to help small businesses succeed by expressing what makes them unique—their brand,” Shostak said. “With our new agentic email builder, we’re pairing what our members already love with a partner that can co-create with them and save hours of work.”

Performance backs the aesthetic

Design-forward messaging is often dismissed as subjective, but Flodesk’s performance data suggests otherwise. According to the company, emails created on the platform see open rates 17% higher than the industry average. Its opt-in forms perform twice as well as standard benchmarks, and visually polished campaigns can drive up to 200% more conversions.

Those numbers help explain why Flodesk has scaled rapidly without external capital. Growth has been driven largely by word of mouth and the success of its users—a model that aligns neatly with its emphasis on long-term brand building over short-term hacks.

The platform’s patented design technology also gives users a level of control that’s rare in SMB-focused tools: adaptive layouts, custom fonts, and built-in automations, all without requiring design or development skills.

Beyond email: a broader MarTech ambition

Email may be Flodesk’s foundation, but it’s no longer the ceiling. The company plans to expand its AI-powered design system across additional digital formats, allowing creators to reuse brand assets and campaigns beyond the inbox.

The long-term goal is ambitious: unify brand, marketing, and sales in a single, design-forward platform. For entrepreneurs juggling multiple tools to maintain consistency across channels, that promise addresses a familiar pain point.

In a MarTech ecosystem obsessed with funnels, attribution, and optimization dashboards, Flodesk is betting that creativity itself is the differentiator. And with $36 million in ARR, strong engagement metrics, and a clear AI roadmap, it’s proving that beautiful, on-brand communication isn’t just expressive—it’s commercially effective.

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FADEL is pushing AI deeper into the operational core of brand licensing and marketing compliance. The company has introduced FADEL AIVA, a new AI technology designed to move beyond insights and actively execute tasks across complex, global licensing workflows.

Positioned as an evolution of FADEL’s existing AI capabilities, AIVA unifies generative, analytical, and predictive AI with purpose-built agents embedded directly into FADEL’s Brand Vision and IPM Suite platforms. The goal: automate decision-making, reduce compliance risk, and speed up approvals without forcing organizations to rework their existing processes.

“AIVA represents a fundamental shift in how licensing and marketing teams operate,” said Tarek Fadel, founder and CEO of FADEL. “We’re moving beyond AI that simply generates insights to AI that also acts on them.”

From insight to execution

In licensing and brand compliance, insight alone is rarely enough. Teams still spend significant time reviewing products, interpreting contracts, tracking expired assets, and policing misuse of licensed IP across digital channels. AIVA is designed to close that gap by embedding AI agents directly inside these workflows.

The platform can identify expired content across social platforms, flag unauthorized grey-market sellers, reduce copyright infringement tied to licensed IP, and even predict royalty billings. It also supports scenario planning, such as suggesting strategies to mitigate tariff impacts—an increasingly relevant challenge for global brands.

What sets AIVA apart is its emphasis on action. Rather than surfacing dashboards or alerts that require manual follow-up, the AI agents reason within real business processes, route approvals, trigger revisions, and populate systems automatically.

Built for real-world workflows

AIVA is built on the AWS Bedrock Agentic AI platform, giving it the ability to reason, decide, and act within defined guardrails. FADEL says this architecture allows enterprises to adopt AI-driven automation without disrupting existing workflows or introducing security concerns—a key consideration for brand owners and licensors operating across multiple regions.

Initial agents focus on two of the most resource-intensive areas of licensing operations:

• AIVA Reviewer Agent: Embedded within product approval workflows, this agent reviews submissions against brand guidelines and licensing terms. It validates product and property accuracy, moderates content for issues such as harmful or non-compliant material, and routes items back to licensees for revision or acknowledgment before final licensor approval.

• AIVA Contract Ingestion Agent: Working alongside FADEL’s Brand Vision and IPM Suite, this agent interprets licensing contracts, extracts rights and obligations, and automatically creates structured data—such as parties, deals, and royalty payment terms—to support downstream automation in compliance tracking and royalty billing.

Together, these agents address a long-standing bottleneck in licensing operations: the reliance on manual review for tasks that are both high-risk and high-volume.

A continuation, not a pivot

FADEL has been layering AI into its platform since 2021, focusing on improving operational efficiency and customer experience. AIVA builds on that foundation by shifting AI from an advisory role into an executional one.

This reflects a broader trend across enterprise MarTech and IP management: AI is increasingly expected to operate inside systems of record, not alongside them. As licensing portfolios grow more complex and brand risk extends across e-commerce, social media, and global marketplaces, automation is becoming less about convenience and more about control.

Why it matters for MarTech and brand governance

For marketing and licensing leaders, AIVA signals where AI adoption is heading next. Generative tools may help create content faster, but compliance failures can erase those gains overnight. By embedding AI agents directly into approval, contract, and compliance workflows, FADEL is addressing a less glamorous—but arguably more critical—side of digital brand management.

If AIVA performs as promised, it could reduce review cycles, lower compliance risk, and free teams to focus on strategy rather than enforcement. More importantly, it reframes AI not as a creative add-on, but as an operational backbone for brand governance at scale.

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The global baking mixes market is on a steady rise as convenience, consistency, and cost efficiency reshape how consumers and food businesses bake. According to a new report from Verified Market Research, the market—valued at $6.61 billion in 2024—is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.3% between 2026 and 2032, reaching $11.09 billion by the end of the forecast period.

That growth reflects a broader shift in global food consumption patterns, where time efficiency and standardized quality increasingly outweigh traditional, from-scratch preparation—both at home and in commercial kitchens.

Convenience becomes a core demand driver

One of the strongest tailwinds for the baking mixes market is the global appetite for convenience foods. Urbanization, dual-income households, and time-constrained lifestyles are pushing consumers toward ready-to-use solutions that simplify meal and dessert preparation without sacrificing taste or reliability.

For commercial operators—particularly quick-service restaurants, cloud kitchens, and in-store bakeries—baking mixes offer clear operational advantages. They reduce labor dependency, minimize ingredient sourcing complexity, and ensure consistent output across locations. From a B2B perspective, this translates into stable, high-volume demand and long-term supply contracts, making the category attractive for manufacturers focused on scale and predictability.

Home baking evolves from hobby to habit

At the same time, home baking is experiencing a renaissance. Social media platforms have turned baking into both a creative outlet and a form of personal expression, driving demand for easy-to-use mixes that deliver professional-quality results.

This resurgence is no longer limited to basic cakes and cookies. Consumers are increasingly seeking premium, organic, gluten-free, and protein-enriched baking mixes, pushing manufacturers to innovate beyond traditional formulations. The premiumization trend is expanding margins while opening up new brand-positioning opportunities, particularly in mature markets where differentiation is critical.

For investors and product strategists, this signals that growth is being driven as much by value-added innovation as by volume.

Foodservice expansion strengthens bulk demand

The rapid expansion of the global foodservice industry is another key growth engine. Cafés, bakeries, hotels, and institutional catering providers rely on baking mixes to maintain consistency, control costs, and scale efficiently—especially in regions facing skilled labor shortages.

Emerging markets are playing a growing role here. As organized foodservice expands across Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and parts of the Middle East, baking mixes are becoming an essential input for standardized, repeatable menu offerings. This trend supports recurring, bulk demand and strengthens revenue visibility for suppliers.

Cost pressures and consumer perception remain hurdles

Despite positive momentum, the market faces notable constraints. Volatility in raw material prices—particularly wheat flour, sugar, cocoa, and dairy—continues to pressure margins. Climate variability, geopolitical disruptions, and trade policies can quickly destabilize supply chains, making cost forecasting more complex for global producers.

At the consumer level, perception also plays a role. A segment of health-conscious buyers still prefers scratch baking with fresh ingredients, viewing baking mixes as overly processed or high in sugar and additives. This skepticism is pushing manufacturers toward clean-label reformulations, which can increase R&D costs and extend time-to-market.

Private labels intensify competition

Competition within the baking mixes market is intensifying, particularly from private-label brands. Large retailers are leveraging price advantages to capture share, squeezing margins for established brands and raising promotional costs.

In parallel, relatively low entry barriers in some regions are encouraging local players to enter the market, increasing fragmentation. For established manufacturers, sustained growth will depend on brand differentiation, innovation, and strategic partnerships rather than price competition alone.

Regional outlook: maturity meets momentum

Geographically, North America continues to dominate the global baking mixes market. High consumption of packaged bakery products, advanced food processing infrastructure, and widespread acceptance of convenience foods underpin strong demand in the U.S. and Canada.

Europe follows closely, supported by a mature bakery culture and growing interest in premium and organic mixes, particularly in Germany, the U.K., and France.

Asia-Pacific stands out as the fastest-growing region. Rapid urbanization, rising disposable incomes, and increasing exposure to Western-style baked goods are driving volume-led growth across China, India, and Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa are showing steady progress, aided by improving retail infrastructure and investment from multinational manufacturers.

A stable, innovation-led growth story

Overall, the baking mixes market presents a picture of stable, long-term growth anchored in convenience, foodservice expansion, and evolving consumer preferences. While raw material volatility and competitive pressures remain, innovation in specialty and clean-label products is creating new revenue streams.

For manufacturers and investors alike, success will hinge on localized product strategies, cost optimization, and strong distribution partnerships—particularly in high-growth emerging markets. As convenience and creativity continue to converge in the kitchen, baking mixes are positioned to remain a staple across both households and commercial food operations.

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Mendra, Inc. has officially entered the biopharmaceutical arena with an ambitious pitch: use artificial intelligence to fix what’s long been broken in rare disease drug development. The newly launched company announced it has closed an $82 million oversubscribed Series A round, co-led by OrbiMed, 8VC, and 5AM Ventures, with participation from Lux Capital and Wing VC.

The funding gives Mendra both validation and firepower as it sets out to modernize how rare disease therapies are identified, developed, and ultimately delivered to patients—an area of medicine where scientific promise often collides with commercial and logistical complexity.

Applying AI Where Rare Disease Development Struggles Most

Rare disease drug development faces a familiar set of challenges: small and geographically dispersed patient populations, slow clinical trial enrollment, and fragmented global commercialization pathways. Mendra’s strategy is to deploy AI across each of these bottlenecks rather than treating technology as a standalone discovery tool.

According to the company, its platform will focus on:

• Accelerating patient identification to reduce the time and cost of finding eligible trial participants

• Improving clinical trial enrollment, a frequent cause of delays in rare disease programs

• Supporting global market access, helping therapies reach patients beyond traditional U.S. and EU launch geographies

The Series A capital will also be used to acquire and develop initial rare disease assets, forming the foundation of Mendra’s therapeutic portfolio.

A Hybrid Model: Asset-Centric, Platform-Enabled

Unlike pure AI drug discovery startups, Mendra is positioning itself as a rare disease-focused biopharma company augmented by AI, not replaced by it. The emphasis is on combining deep domain expertise with software-driven decision-making across asset selection, development strategy, and commercialization planning.

“We are building Mendra to deliver high-potential rare disease medicines more effectively to patients on a global scale,” said Joshua Grass, co-founder and CEO. He noted that AI-driven capabilities could help address some of the most persistent inefficiencies in rare disease drug development, including long timelines and inconsistent execution.

Leadership Built for Scale and Specialization

Mendra’s leadership team reflects its dual focus on rare disease execution and advanced technology.

• Joshua Grass, Co-founder & CEO, brings more than two decades of biopharma leadership experience, including successful exits at Modis Therapeutics and Escient Pharmaceuticals, as well as a key role in building BioMarin’s rare disease portfolio.

• Jeff Ajer, Chief Commercial Officer, previously served as CCO at BioMarin, where he built global commercial infrastructure and launched multiple rare disease therapies worldwide.

• Lalarukh Haris Shaikh, Ph.D., Co-founder & CTO, comes from Palantir Technologies, where she led life sciences and aerospace initiatives, bridging healthcare and advanced data platforms.

• Gregory Balani, Pharm.D., VP of Business Development, adds experience from Escient Pharmaceuticals, Zogenix, Bayer, and most recently as a venture investor at Avego Bioscience Capital.

Why Investors Are Paying Attention

Investor interest in AI-enabled biopharma has surged, but rare disease remains a particularly attractive niche. While patient populations are smaller, regulatory pathways can be clearer, and successful therapies often command premium pricing and long market exclusivity.

By combining capital discipline, AI-driven infrastructure, and executives with proven rare disease track records, Mendra is betting it can shorten development cycles while expanding access to underserved patient populations worldwide.

If successful, the company could offer a blueprint for how AI-powered commercialization and clinical execution—not just discovery—may define the next phase of biopharma innovation.

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The global digital advertising industry is entering its next phase of expansion—larger, smarter, and far more complex. According to a new report added to ResearchAndMarkets.com, the global digital advertising market is expected to grow from $414.52 billion in 2025 to $819.51 billion by 2031, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.03%.

The forecast underscores how deeply digital channels are now embedded in global marketing strategies, even as advertisers contend with privacy restrictions, signal loss, and a shifting measurement landscape.

Digital Advertising’s Structural Tailwinds Remain Intact

At its core, digital advertising continues to benefit from structural shifts in consumer behavior. High-speed internet penetration and near-universal smartphone adoption have permanently altered how audiences consume media, pushing brands toward platforms that offer scale, precision, and measurable outcomes.

Search engines, social media platforms, websites, and mobile apps now serve as the primary conduits for brand discovery and commerce. The rise of e-commerce has accelerated this transition, prompting advertisers to redirect budgets away from traditional media in favor of digital environments that deliver real-time performance data and clearer attribution.

Despite mounting regulatory pressure, the sector’s financial resilience remains evident. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported that U.S. internet advertising revenues climbed 14.9% in 2024 to a record $258.6 billion, highlighting advertisers’ continued confidence in digital channels—even as targeting capabilities evolve.

Social Platforms and Influencers Fuel Engagement-Led Growth

Social media platforms remain one of the strongest growth engines in the digital advertising ecosystem. Their ability to combine algorithmic targeting with high-engagement formats—particularly short-form video—has made them indispensable for brand-building and performance marketing alike.

Influencer marketing has become a strategic pillar within this ecosystem. Creator-led storytelling allows brands to establish trust and relevance across diverse demographics, often outperforming traditional display formats in engagement and recall.

This momentum is reflected in platform earnings. In its Q3 2024 results, Meta reported a 19% year-over-year increase in advertising revenue to $39.9 billion, reinforcing the role of social platforms as primary recipients of global marketing spend.

Retail Media Emerges as a Privacy-Safe Powerhouse

As third-party cookies fade and cross-site tracking weakens, retail media networks have emerged as one of the most strategically valuable segments in digital advertising.

Retailers are capitalizing on their vast repositories of first-party purchase data to offer closed-loop attribution, directly linking ad exposure to sales outcomes. For advertisers navigating privacy constraints, this model delivers something increasingly rare: high-intent audiences with measurable ROI.

Amazon’s performance illustrates this shift. In Q3 2024, the company reported a 19% year-over-year increase in advertising services revenue to $14.3 billion, signaling how retail media is reshaping budget allocation decisions across industries.

This broader rebalancing aligns with Dentsu’s forecast that digital channels will account for 59.6% of total global advertising expenditure in 2024, cementing digital’s majority share of ad spend.

Privacy Regulations Reshape Targeting Economics

While growth prospects remain strong, the industry faces mounting challenges from stricter privacy regulations and the systematic deprecation of third-party cookies. These changes are dismantling long-standing data infrastructures used to track users across devices and platforms.

The resulting “signal loss” has reduced targeting precision and made it more difficult to attribute conversions accurately. As transparency declines, advertisers are often forced to spend more to achieve the same level of engagement.

According to the IAB’s 2024 findings, 87% of ad buyers reported increased advertising costs directly linked to privacy legislation and data signal loss. This inflationary pressure is reshaping programmatic strategies and limiting scalability—particularly for smaller players without robust first-party data assets.

Generative AI Transforms Creative at Scale

One of the most significant shifts underway is the integration of Generative AI into creative production and optimization. AI-powered tools now enable advertisers to generate thousands of personalized ad variations in real time, tailored to specific audience segments and contextual signals.

This approach dramatically lowers production costs while increasing campaign agility. Static creatives are giving way to dynamic formats that continuously optimize based on performance data.

Alphabet highlighted this trend in its Q3 2024 earnings, reporting a 10% year-over-year increase in advertising revenue to $65.9 billion, driven in part by rapid adoption of AI-powered creative and search tools.

Connected TV Accelerates the Shift Away From Linear Media

Connected TV (CTV) and OTT advertising are redefining the video advertising landscape as marketers migrate budgets from linear television to streaming platforms.

CTV combines the immersive impact of traditional TV with digital capabilities such as addressable advertising, advanced targeting, and cross-device measurement. As consumers continue to abandon cable bundles for on-demand streaming, advertisers are following audiences into these environments.

The IAB’s 2024 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report projects CTV ad spend to grow 12% year-over-year to $22.7 billion, outpacing growth across the broader media market.

The Outlook: Bigger, Smarter, and More Constrained

The digital advertising market’s trajectory toward $819.5 billion by 2031 reflects both opportunity and tension. Growth is increasingly driven by AI, retail media, and video innovation, while privacy constraints force advertisers to rethink targeting, measurement, and budget efficiency.

For brands and platforms alike, the next decade will reward those that can balance personalization with compliance—leveraging first-party data, AI-driven creativity, and closed-loop measurement to thrive in a post-cookie advertising economy.

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