A St. Petersburg artificial intelligence company with multiple Fortune 500 customers in the retail space has closed a $4.2 million seed round.
Optiversal filed the funding with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission on Monday and confirmed the funding with Tampa Bay Inno on Wednesday. The funding, which is the first for the company, had four participating investors that were all undisclosed.
“We went to market early this year after some financial jitters set in,” said Will Underwood, Optiversal CEO and co-founder. “It probably was not as easy [to get funding] as it would’ve been a year prior, but we had a lot of interest because the space is red-hot, and we bootstrapped some good traction already.”
Optiversal was founded in early 2021 but restructured late last year. It offers an AI platform that creates marketing, product and social materials at a much faster rate and a higher volume than a traditional copywriter. It has racked up multiple Fortune 500 customers, Underwood said, declining to disclose customer names. He said the company has driven over $100 million in revenue for its customers.
“We’re not a productivity tool,” he said, referring to the highly watched ChatGPT. “We’re integrated with [the customers’] system and data; it’s an enterprise friendly platform, so they can trust us to say it in their brand voice and procure content for them.”
The latest funding will go toward building the team, emphasizing engineers and AI experts. There will also be a focus on expanding the client base across large retailers.
“We’re just kind of getting started, but we’re making a big push this year,” he said.
As of now, Underwood said there are no plans to seek additional funding. While headquartered in St. Petersburg, the company does not have a physical office. His co-founders, Lucas Tieleman and Jarrod Wolf, are in Austin, Texas and New York, respectively. But Underwood, a Florida native who left for Chicago, decided to move back after he sold his company, AddStructure. It was acquired in 2018 by Austin-based Bazaarvoice for an undisclosed amount.
“Certainly, Miami is bringing a lot of attention to Florida and building innovation hubs and starting to attract talent,” he said. “It seemed like a great mix of quality of life and to be an increasing center for innovation.”
