RAD AI, changing the game for marketing leaders

The Offer Sheet readers —

Today, we’re excited to be sitting down again with the co-founder and CEO of RAD AI, Jeremy Barnett, for part II of our conversation. We first spoke to Jeremy in December, and that conversation can be found here.

Quick refresher: They are making massive strides in AI, and already powering some of the bigger enterprises across industries, including ours in STR / hospitality.

They’ve secured funding from over 6,000 investors to date including from the likes of Fidelity, Adobe Fund, VCs, and execs at Google, Amazon and Live Nation.

We discuss investment into hypergrowth companies like theirs, how they are advancing their AI models, projected revenue growth, and why it’s validating to be backed by both institutional investors, and individual investors contributing as little as $500.

Let’s Go! 👇🏼

Jeremy, great to speak again and hope the holidays allowed for some time to unwind and reflect (and think about the future).

What are some new year’s goals that you have for RAD AI?

2024 is already off to a strong start and our focus this year is on expanding our client impact, enhancing our technology, and deepening our market relationships. Here's a snapshot of what we are setting out to achieve:

• Diversifying Market Reach: We’ll leverage our proven success in existing sectors like healthcare, gaming, entertainment and hospitality to expand into new industries. We have several newly appointed board members who will play a pivotal role in this endeavor. The board is composed of leaders from hugely influential companies, including AT&T (Telcom)), Mars Wrigley (CPG) ) and Loreal (Beauty), to name a few.  

• Advancing AI Capabilities: We’ll continue to build and innovate around our core AI technology to ensure we deepen our offering and product differentiation. It’s this commitment to product that cements client relationships while staying ahead of our competition. 

• Expanding Investment: Following our crowdfunding triumphs and the support from significant investors - many of whom are your readers - we're set to attract further investments and make a series of strategic acquisitions. Our M&A strategy will fuel growth and enable us to scale our technology even more aggressively.

We have ambitious goals, and the team is extremely bullish on making it happen.  

We’ve gotten great feedback from investors in our The Offer Sheet community about the opportunities to invest in young, hypergrowth companies like yours. After a seeming pullback in the investing space in 2022 / 2023, what do you think 2024 will look like? Do you think now is a good time for the retail investor to be getting in?

While I’m not a financial advisor, the investment environment shows positive signs of revitalization, which is a good sign for investors. That said, you certainly don’t need to be a financial expert to understand that the AI industry has consistently thrived over the past few years.  From a market perspective, we’ve seen a shift from the previous years' challenges, offering the potential for substantial growth in young, high-growth companies. While these signals are positive, traditional fundamentals still reign supreme when evaluating investment opportunities. RAD has consistently grown over the past three years - despite market conditions. For clarity, we’ve shown that we can build a sustainable business even in a market downturn. So, while market conditions matter - we stay focused on building a sustainable business with a product that is world-class.  

You’re in a unique position because you’ve raised significant capital from companies / institutions like Fidelity, Adobe Fund for Design, and others - but also from individual investors, investing as little as $500. What are some differences between the two and which feels more validating?

This is a great question; the truth is, we wouldn’t be in the strong position we are in today without support from both. Our institutional investors brought significant capital and offered invaluable industry expertise, connections, and credibility. Their investment provides substantial validation of our team, business model and market potential. In contrast, capital from individual investors represents more of a broad-based, grassroots belief in our vision and mission. This democratization of investment allows us to build a diverse investor base and foster a community around RAD AI’s growth and success. 

It's incredibly validating to see everyday individuals resonate with our mission and choose to invest their hard-earned money in our future.

In our last interview you mentioned that many of your customers work hand in hand with your product team on new feature sets that solve unique challenges with your AI tech. As someone who has done both Product and Customer Success roles, that warms my heart. Can you talk a little bit more about this and why it’s so important in building a nine and ten figure business?

Integrating customer feedback directly into our product development and roadmap is a key strategy for our growth. This collaborative approach ensures our technology is tailored to meet specific and real-time market needs and helps our clients feel invested in the journey. By directly involving them in shaping our platform, we’re not only validating and refining our technology, but we’re also fostering brand advocacy. I firmly believe this customer-centric innovation strategy is crucial for maintaining relevance, staying competitive and driving growth.

Who are some of your biggest customers, brands that our readers will know? And how are they helping champion / fuel your growth?

Skechers, Sweetgreen and MGM Resorts come to mind first. These brands lend market validation and credibility to our team, technology and methodology. Enterprise sales is complex - so having clients that are willing to endorse through case studies opens new opportunities and expands our reach in the market. 

What do your projected revenue numbers look like for 2024 and how much growth is that relative to 2023?

We are projecting $5.1M in 2024, which will be 4.5X growth from 2023 to 2024.  

I love the problem you’re solving. That brands spend years trying to figure out how and where to invest their marketing dollars based on where they think their consumers are. How simple / difficult has it been to convince brands that “hey, we can do that for you just about instantly with our tech, save you millions on poorly spent campaigns, etc.”?

It’s a very interesting and nuanced challenge, especially with how rapidly AI is evolving. We’ve seen that the appetite to adopt AI and a platform like ours changes significantly depending on who we are speaking with inside the organization. While the idea of using AI to instantly improve marketing decisions and potentially save millions seems like a no-brainer, challenges lie in overcoming skepticism towards AI, facilitating change in established marketing processes, and ensuring the technology's adaptability to each brand's unique needs. Building trust has been critical to our continued success, and it's achieved only through full transparency and consistently delivering AI-driven insights that generate impact and measurable ROI.

This may seem like somewhat obvious, but what about benefits would I get by investing in your crowdfunding round now, versus later?

Anyone who invests before Midnight PST on Jan. 24 will receive 5% bonus shares. Also, we are closing this round in the second or third week of February because we have big news that will drive the valuation higher.

In our first chat you mentioned that there may be some M&A opportunities on the horizon in early 2024. Our readers are dying for an update. What can you tell us? I’ll keep it quiet. ;)

We are very close to signing a LOI with a high-value target. That is all I can tell you. The terms and close date of the deal are still under lock and key. 

In December, I asked about perks for our readers when investing in RAD AI and you mentioned 15% bonus shares if they invested before a deadline of 12/27. How about now for those investing in January?

Anyone who invests before Midnight PST on Jan. 24 will receive 5% bonus shares.