Needle, an end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI) marketer based in Singapore, has on Wednesday announced the close of its $1.2 million oversubscribed pre-seed round led by Iterative.

Needle said in a statement that the round also saw participation from Ethos Fund and Goldbell Financial Services.

Notable angel investors including J.J. Chai, Founder of Rainforest, also participated in the round.

According to the statement, the funds will be used to expand its team, including data scientists, AI trainers, and engineers.

“It’s never been easier to start a business, and it’s also never been harder to grow one. New brands need to find customers on multiple channels and transact with them on multiple platforms,

“On average, they are using over ten tools which is also a lot of data to make sense of and a lot of decisions to make. At Needle, we want to help founders cut through the noise, make sense of their data, and point them where to focus,” said Kiyan Foroughi, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Needle.

It is noted that founders of rising e-commerce brands are often resource-constrained and spend up to $3,000 monthly for generic marketing campaigns with little to no return on investment (ROI).

Needle, founded by seasoned e-commerce founders and operators, starts by helping founders generate ideas and determine business and marketing priorities and then provides personalized recommendations for effective tactics.

From creating emails to preparing and launching ad campaigns, Needle streamlines the process using generative AI.

“Many e-commerce companies today struggle to market effectively. They’re drowning in a sea of platforms, channels, and data,

“We’re excited to back Needle to help make sense of all of this with targeted recommendations to help these brands more effectively spend, reach, and help their customers,” said Brian Ma, General Partner of Iterative.

Needle works by connecting data between E-commerce brands platforms like Shopify, Google Analytics, and Facebook Ads with Needle.

Its AI then uses the data to set achievable goals and specific tactics to achieve them, pulling from its extensive and ever-growing tactics database.

The tactics recommended are taken from a database of proven marketing strategies and campaigns used at the world’s largest brands.

Needle then takes it a step further, using generative AI to expedite action-taking.

It creates recommended marketing assets, such as ready-to-review campaigns, and sends customer emails, empowering brands to take action quicker.

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