Amsterdam’s Billy Grace raises €2.3M from Fortino Capital, founder of The Next Web, others 

Amsterdam-based Billy Grace, an AI marketing startup, on Wednesday, announced that it has raised €2.3M from various investors, including Fortino Capital. 

Several angel investors, including Raymond Spanjar and Floris Rost van Tonningen (founders of Hyves and IEX), Patrick and Robert Jan de Laive (The Next Web), David Vermeulen (Inner Circle), Higinio Raventos (Google Spain/Portugal), Dennis Goedegebuure (eBay, Paypall and Airbnb), David Wyler (Tinder) and Quintin Schevernels (former Funda-CEO), also participated. 

The Dutch startup says it will use the funds to scale nationally and internationally. Billy Grace helps companies increase the return on investment of online ads.

Mitch Voskuilen, CEO and founder of Billy Grace says, “We have spent years building Billy Grace, testing our platform with a limited number of partners, and are now ready to scale. We benefit from companies’ curiosity about AI possibilities.” 

“Marketing teams that use smart automation have more time for work where people make a difference, such as creativity and human contact. I think we are only just discovering AI’s possibilities. In a few years, every marketing team will be using AI to make their marketing ‘smarter’,” he adds. 

Billy Grace: AI marketing startup

Robin Friend, Mitch Voskuilen, and Tjadi Peeters founded Billy Grace in 2021 after struggling with digital ad spending optimisation. 

“We discovered that AI was better at optimising ads and discovering which marketing dollar brings in a new customer,” says Voskuilen. 

The platform lets companies collaborate with self-learning algorithms (AI), where marketers can better track, attribute, analyse, automate, and optimise online marketing within and across channels. 

 Several companies, including Vanilia, Intersport, Twinsport, TrainMore, and Patta use the platform to manage digital ads. 

Wouter Goossens, Investment Director at Fortino Capital says, “Billy Grace makes use of a couple of important trends. Many marketing teams are struggling with staff shortages and struggling with the attribution of campaign funds. It’s often guessing which channels are driving growth. Billy Grace offers automation through AI and is highly scalable. It is now used by both traditional companies and young startups. We look forward to helping Billy Grace and the team scale (inter)nationally.”