Enterprise advertising and marketing groups have spent years investing in social listening instruments constructed for a text-first web, even because the platforms their clients truly use have moved nearly fully to video. The hole that creates is structural: roughly 80% of brand name mentions on TikTok and Instagram occur with no tag, a hashtag, or a caption – which means the overwhelming majority of natural client dialog a couple of product is invisible to the instruments manufacturers depend on to trace it. Plot was constructed to shut that hole, utilizing multimodal AI to research the audio, visuals, and on-screen textual content inside social video concurrently, surfacing model mentions whether or not or not a creator ever tags the model. The platform provides enterprise advertising and marketing groups the power to trace earned media, supply and vet creators, and run client analysis in minutes quite than weeks and early outcomes present manufacturers discovering 2 to eight occasions extra content material that includes their merchandise than they captured earlier than. In 18 months since launch, Plot has grown ARR 3.8x year-over-year with a 132% web income retention price, attracting enterprise clients together with Visa, Mastercard, PepsiCo, Fenty Magnificence, Profit Cosmetics, and CAVA nearly fully by inbound demand.
AlleyWatch sat down with Plot Co-founder and CEO Megan Duong to study extra concerning the enterprise, its future plans, current funding spherical, and far, rather more…
Who have been your traders and the way a lot did you elevate?
We raised $10M in a seed spherical co-led by XYZ Enterprise Capital and Mischief Ventures, with participation from Seven Seven Six, Alexis Ohanian’s fund, and Acme Capital. This brings our complete raised to $14M. What made this spherical particular to me is the caliber of operators and entrepreneurs across the desk. Camille Ricketts, who co-led from XYZ, was beforehand Head of Advertising and marketing at Notion and First Spherical Capital. She instructed us this was her first funding at XYZ. She wasn’t simply writing a test, she felt the ache we’re fixing firsthand. Dustin Moring at Mischief Ventures brings a uncommon mixture of product intuition (Money App, Sq.) and operator expertise. The Mischief crew contains founders and operators who’ve constructed a few of the defining corporations of the final decade, and that’s precisely the form of backing we wished.
Inform us concerning the services or products that Plot provides.
Plot is a social video intelligence platform for enterprise manufacturers. In plain phrases: we analyze social video information so manufacturers can see and perceive what’s truly taking place in video with none tagging required.
Right here’s the issue we’re fixing. Roughly 80% of brand name mentions in social video are untagged. Somebody exhibits your product, speaks your model title, holds your packaging and none of it will get picked up by conventional social listening instruments as a result of these instruments have been constructed for textual content, hashtags, and captions. Plot was constructed to see inside video. We use multimodal AI to research audio, visuals, and on-screen textual content concurrently, so if a creator is making dinner and your product is sitting on their counter, we catch it, even when they by no means point out you by title.
From there, manufacturers use Plot for 4 core issues: monitoring earned media (tagged and untagged), sourcing and vetting creators for campaigns, working client analysis in minutes as an alternative of weeks, and measuring the impression of their neighborhood engagement efforts. On common, manufacturers uncover 2–8x extra content material that includes their merchandise than they have been capturing earlier than.
Toto Haba, SVP, International Advertising and marketing and Communications at Profit Cosmetics, put it effectively: “Since utilizing Plot, I’ve been seeing a 30 p.c to 50 p.c raise in user-generated content material that options our merchandise however doesn’t tag us. It is a huge deal as a result of manufacturers like us depend on participating with our advocates instantly. I’m buzzing with the probabilities for participating in conversations which are ‘hidden’ to us at the moment. Issues like ‘profit forehead companies experiences’ aren’t one thing that will get tagged. Plot helps you to escape of your For You Web page (FYP).” That’s the unlock, not simply seeing extra information, however performing on it earlier than the second passes.
What impressed the beginning of Plot?
My complete profession has been in social media and branding. I’m what I name a first-generation social media marketer. I got here up studying the right way to write nice copy, constructed the social crew at Apple, and understood the text-based world deeply.
After I left Apple in 2020 and began a social media company, two issues occurred concurrently: the pandemic hit, and TikTok took over. In a single day, every thing I knew about content material shifted from text-first to video-first. I used to be creating video content material for manufacturers and making an attempt to tug insights from it and I shortly realized no instruments existed to make sense of what was taking place inside video at scale.
I used to be watching creators discuss merchandise, maintain them up, point out them in passing, and types had no thought. The information was proper there, however invisible. I noticed a large untapped market, met my co-founder and CTO Ethan, who led product engineering at Formation Bio from Collection A to C, beforehand at Microsoft, by a YC co-founder matching program, and we began constructing Plot in 2022. The technical timing was additionally proper. Multimodal AI had lastly matured to the purpose the place analyzing video at scale was each attainable and inexpensive. Eighteen months in the past this was technically out of attain for many startups. In the present day it’s in manufacturing for Fortune 500 manufacturers.
How is Plot completely different?
The differentiation begins with what we will truly see. Sprinklr and Brandwatch have been designed for a text-first period. They require tagging, hashtags, or captions to floor a point out, and have been actually constructed round customer support use circumstances. Plot analyzes the total context of video: visuals, audio, objects, actions, on-screen textual content. We constructed a wealthy video intelligence layer and leverage that information to supercharge agentic workflows throughout neighborhood, influencer, and analysis. If somebody holds up a Goldfish cracker whereas making dinner and talks for 2 minutes with out ever mentioning the model, we discover it. No different instrument out there does that at the moment.
Plot’s video intelligence layer helps you to see actual alerts, and our brokers allow you to act on them. Creator Sourcing lets advertising and marketing groups discover creators with a immediate: “Discover me 100 skate boarders in Brooklyn who’ve used our product within the final three months.” We floor actual matches from video information, not bio key phrases. Deep Analysis compresses weeks of client analysis into minutes. And our neighborhood instruments assist manufacturers establish and interact their superfans at scale. Individuals who love the product however have by no means been tagged, by no means been reached.
It’s additionally price noting: for manufacturers that have already got Sprinklr or Meltwater for textual content protection, Plot is additive. We’re not asking anybody to tear and substitute. We fill the video hole these instruments actually can not see.
What market does Plot goal and the way huge is it?
We serve enterprise client manufacturers with a powerful presence on TikTok and Instagram. Our core consumers sit in social media, neighborhood, client insights, and influencer advertising and marketing. Our buyer base spans magnificence, CPG, meals and beverage, vogue, monetary companies, sports activities, and leisure, and contains manufacturers like Visa, Mastercard, PepsiCo, Fenty Magnificence, Profit Cosmetics, CAVA, Canva, Lululemon, and Warby Parker.
What’s shocked us is what number of “non-obvious” verticals want this. We’re working with insurance coverage corporations, fintech manufacturers, and even QSR chains as a result of any model making an attempt to succeed in a youthful technology is making an attempt to grasp what’s taking place in video. That expands the market significantly.
When it comes to dimension: social intelligence and market analysis companies symbolize a $100B market, and influencer platforms and companies are one other $35B on prime of that. As we construct deeper intelligence on each manufacturers and creators, we’re positioned to develop throughout each. The full addressable market we’re going after is $135B and we’re beginning with the intelligence layer that makes the entire thing work.
What’s your corporation mannequin?
SaaS. Enterprise manufacturers pay annual subscriptions to entry the Plot platform, and contracts develop as groups discover extra use circumstances: social, neighborhood, insights, influencer, analysis. Our 132% web income retention price tells that story: clients keep and develop.
Traditionally, most of our progress has been nearly fully inbound. We haven’t had an outbound gross sales crew. Manufacturers discover us as a result of they’re hitting the wall of what legacy instruments can do, and somebody on the crew hears about Plot by a buyer, a convention, or a press story and involves us. We predict that can proceed, and the funding helps us construct the crew and product to help that demand at scale.
For instance, when Profit Cosmetics’ SVP of International Advertising and marketing noticed her personal information for the primary time that includes Profit merchandise that had by no means been tagged, complete classes of UGC her crew didn’t know existed, she stated, “Plot helps you to escape of your For You Web page.” That second of recognition began repeating throughout buyer after buyer, and inside months Fortune 500 manufacturers like Visa and Mastercard have been discovering us by phrase of mouth — model groups telling different model groups, “you must see this.”
How are you making ready for a possible financial slowdown?
We’re truly able the place an financial slowdown tends to speed up demand for what we construct. When budgets tighten, manufacturers must show the ROI of each greenback, which implies they want higher information. They should know which creators are literally driving outcomes, which campaigns are chopping by, and the place genuine model love lives. Plot solutions all of these questions.
We’re additionally seeing manufacturers shift away from costly paid influencer offers towards community-led progress, participating superfans who already love the product. That’s a meaningfully cheaper technique, and it’s one Plot permits. When a model realizes they will discover and interact 10,000 genuine advocates who’ve by no means been tagged, at a fraction of the price of one mega-influencer deal, that’s a finances dialog that writes itself.
After which there’s the agentic piece: the work that used to require a crew of analysts, coordinators, and company hours — sourcing creators, working analysis, monitoring campaigns — Plot’s brokers deal with mechanically. That’s actual headcount and company spend that manufacturers can reallocate. In a tighter surroundings, that worth proposition turns into extra compelling, not much less.
We’re a 12-person crew in New York and intentionally lean. The enterprise has scaled 3.8x year-over-year nearly fully on inbound demand. That basis holds up effectively in unsure environments.
What was the funding course of like?
Truthfully, we have been selective about who we wished within the room. The traders who perceive this market deeply are operators and entrepreneurs who’ve felt the issue firsthand. That was the filter.
Camille Ricketts at XYZ had lived this as Head of Advertising and marketing at Notion. She understood instantly why manufacturers have been flying blind in video. Dustin Moring at Mischief has a deep learn on the place media and the creator economic system are going. The Mischief crew is constructed round product operators who’ve based and scaled defining corporations, together with Zach Perret, the co-founder and CEO of Plaid. That perspective on what it takes to construct foundational infrastructure was precisely what we wished. And Alexis Ohanian — Co-founder and Govt Chair of Reddit and Founding father of Seven Seven Six — has spent his profession on the intersection of neighborhood and the web. Everybody across the desk got here with real conviction concerning the class, not simply the corporate.
What are the most important challenges that you simply confronted whereas elevating capital?
The largest problem was serving to traders perceive that this can be a new class, not only a function on prime of current social listening. Social listening is a widely known house, and there’s a temptation to pattern-match us to current instruments. We’re not that. We constructed the video intelligence layer. When you personal the layer, we allow brokers to behave on it and supercharge difficult advertising and marketing roles.
The training piece was actual. We needed to present, not simply inform — demo the product, stroll by the way it finds untagged content material, present what it unlocks that nothing else out there can. As soon as traders noticed it, the response was constant: “Why doesn’t this exist already?” Getting there in a 30-minute pitch required constructing a transparent through-line from the technical infrastructure to the enterprise outcomes manufacturers care about.
What components about your corporation led your traders to put in writing the test?
Three issues. First, the issue is plain. Video is now 76% of all cell information site visitors and the IAB estimates U.S. corporations are spending about $43.9 billion on influencer and creator advertising and marketing in 2025. This class is increasing quickly, rising 4 occasions as quick as the general conventional media promoting business. Client dialog has moved fully to video, and advertising and marketing measurement instruments haven’t. That hole is huge and structural.
Second, the traction and the pace of it. 3.8x ARR progress year-over-year, 132% NRR, enterprise logos like Visa, Mastercard, and PepsiCo, and we had locked in all of those top-tier enterprise manufacturers inside our first 12 months of being reside, nearly fully inbound. That’s unprecedented. GTM is my background; I spent a decade in social and model advertising and marketing earlier than beginning Plot. Having a technical co-founder in Ethan and a GTM-focused founder in me meant we might construct the product and promote it on the identical time. Quite a lot of nice merchandise stall as a result of the crew can’t go to market. That wasn’t our downside.
Third, timing. Eighteen months in the past, analyzing social video at this scale and value level wasn’t technically possible. Multimodal AI crossed a threshold that made it attainable. We have been positioned at precisely the correct second to construct this, and we moved quick. The shopper roster we’ve inbuilt 18 months proved the market was ready.
What are the milestones you propose to attain within the subsequent six months?
Constructing the agentic layer to motion in opposition to these wealthy video alerts we constructed.
We shipped AI Creator Sourcing. That is one I’m actually enthusiastic about. Advertising and marketing groups can describe precisely the creator they need to discover and let Plot floor actual matches from video information. Not bio key phrases. Precise video proof of who they’re, what they use, what they discuss. In case you’re searching for curly hair creators, our AI appears at tens of millions of movies to search out the very best match creator by analyzing their movies.
Deep Analysis follows carefully behind. We’re compressing what used to take client insights groups weeks, pulling themes, understanding sentiment, answering strategic questions, into one thing that takes minutes contained in the platform.
We’re additionally increasing our information sources, together with Reddit, which provides manufacturers a good richer image of the place client dialog is occurring. And we’ll proceed to scale the enterprise buyer base and develop contained in the accounts we have already got. The 132% NRR tells us there’s a variety of room to develop inside current clients as extra groups inside the identical firm uncover the platform.
What recommendation are you able to provide corporations in New York that wouldn’t have a recent injection of capital within the financial institution?
Keep near your clients and get clear in your GTM technique. Our complete progress has been inbound, pushed by clients who had an actual downside and located that Plot solved it. That solely occurs whenever you’re fixing one thing that really issues. Not one thing you assume ought to matter, however one thing persons are actively scuffling with. You’ll be able to have an excellent product, however in case you don’t know the right way to promote to your goal market that’s the most important hurdle.
And in New York particularly: use the community. This metropolis has an unimaginable density of entrepreneurs, operators, and founders. Each buyer we’ve landed has include some form of heat introduction or word-of-mouth connection. Relationships compound right here.
The place do you see the corporate going now over the close to time period?
We consider Plot because the social information layer for the following technology of promoting AI. The near-term is about transport the total agentic OS on prime of our video intelligence infrastructure, specialised brokers for each advertising and marketing perform, every powered by the identical underlying information layer.
Now we have 4 brokers in movement: the Neighborhood Agent, which identifies and prompts superfans to drive repeat income and scale back CAC; the Marketing campaign Agent, which provides groups on the spot marketing campaign insights to allow them to reallocate finances to what’s truly working; the Analysis Agent, which surfaces product alternatives and whitespace from actual client alerts; and the Influencer Agent, which automates creator sourcing, vetting, and speaking at scale.
In the present day, advertising and marketing groups are restricted by human capability, what number of movies somebody can watch, what number of creators somebody can vet, what number of feedback somebody can go away. The near-term is about eradicating that ceiling. We’re constructing in order that the work that used to require a crew of analysts occurs mechanically, in actual time, on daily basis. That’s what we imply after we say agentic OS for video intelligence.
What’s your favourite spring vacation spot in and across the metropolis?
Central Park is my favourite through the spring in NYC. It’s an excellent change of tempo from downtown the place I reside in SoHo.
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