Sir John Hegarty has invested in his second artistic business enterprise, turning into chair of Genie, which specialises in software program connecting companies with freelance creatives.
Genie emerged from the concept synthetic intelligence may enhance the freelance artistic hiring course of, a development that Marketing campaign lined in-depth on the time of Genie’s launch as a Fb chatbot in February 2019.
Hegarty’s arrival ought to assist the fledgling enterprise increase its profile each with creatives, to whom the platform is free however on an invitation-only foundation, and companies, who’re charged on a pay-as-you-go foundation at present however may even be supplied a subscription-based choice later this yr.
Nonetheless, the veteran adman deflected Marketing campaign’s suggestion that Genie might need introduced him in with a watch to charming potential company clients, asserting that his higher concern is about signing up creatives. “Genie is simply going to be nearly as good because the individuals it may entice,” he mentioned.
He pitched Genie as “the reply” to the advert business’s must “entry the rising freelance workforce with velocity and effectiveness”.
The platform, which is centred on a female-gendered AI assistant referred to as Genie, has to this point linked artistic expertise from campaigns together with Sainsbury’s “1914” and Adidas “There might be haters” with companies corresponding to Droga5, The Brooklyn Brothers and Saatchi & Saatchi.
A spokesman for Genie mentioned that the service’s blanket NDA made it troublesome to be extra open concerning the identification of those creatives, however he was capable of title former Dare government artistic director Brian Cooper and movement designer Danny McGuinness as having labored on a marketing campaign for the Worldwide Affiliation of Suicide Prevention.
The founders of the corporate, recognized formally as Meet Genie, are three headhunters who had been (and stay) companions at artistic sector recruiter LizH: Nicky Badenoch, Nick Grime and Bonnie Harold.
Hegarty mentioned it was this matchmaking pedigree that distinguished Genie from its opponents, convincing him to speculate for a stake that he disclosed was not less than 10% however a lot lower than 50%.
Badenoch, who has additionally labored as an account director at Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, mentioned she was “massively excited” about Hegarty becoming a member of, including: “The artistic business’s most prized commodity is its expertise. The possibility conferences and the tales which all ladder as much as work that delivers fame… At Genie, now we have been capable of engineer the magic of serendipity, codifying our years of expertise right into a tech platform with soul.”
Genie has raised a complete of £1.75m since launch, together with cash from two institutional buyers, certainly one of which is ADA Ventures Angel Investments. It has advanced the unique Fb chatbot into an online, iOS and Android providing and has added the flexibility to deal with freelancers’ IR35 admin.
Genie is the second communications business firm Hegarty has invested in since leaving Bartle Bogle Hegarty in 2014, following influencer advertising platform Whalar in 2017.
He’s additionally chair of, however not an investor in, media company Electrical Glue, and invests in business-to-consumer start-ups by means of his incubator consortium The Storage.
Hegarty mentioned he could be “out of pocket for a substantial sum of cash” if Genie failed, including: “I’ve put cash in as a result of I wished to have a stake within the firm quite than simply drift round taking chairmanships.”