Clouted wants to take the guesswork out of making short videos go viral
Clouted wants to take the guesswork out of making short videos go viral
Clouted 旨在消除短视频病毒式传播中的“盲目猜测”
It feels like short video clips from podcasts, songs, and movies are suddenly everywhere on social media right now, and that’s not an accident. Brands have realized that the format offers a highly cost-effective way to market products. 如今，来自播客、歌曲和电影的短视频片段似乎突然充斥了社交媒体，这并非偶然。各大品牌已经意识到，这种格式提供了一种极具成本效益的产品营销方式。
Brands and marketing agencies often outsource the process of finding the most compelling 30 to 90 seconds of a video, known as ‘clipping’, to independent creators. But managing these gig workers and determining exactly where to distribute those videos presents a massive operational challenge. 品牌方和营销机构通常会将寻找视频中最具吸引力的 30 到 90 秒片段（即“剪辑”）的过程外包给独立创作者。然而，管理这些零工人员并确定这些视频的具体分发渠道，是一项巨大的运营挑战。
Clouted, a startup that went through the a16z’s Speedrun accelerator in 2024, is building the infrastructure to automatically handle both the distribution strategy and the logistics of the clipping process. The platform taps into a network of over 100,000 gig creators to edit clips, then uses AI to determine the best social media platform and target audience for promoting them. Clouted 是一家在 2024 年入选 a16z Speedrun 加速器的初创公司，它正在构建一套基础设施，以自动处理分发策略和剪辑流程的物流工作。该平台利用超过 10 万名零工创作者组成的网络来编辑片段，然后利用人工智能确定最佳的社交媒体平台和目标受众进行推广。
Clouted co-founder and CEO Justin Banusing first applied the company’s technology to his personal passion: electronic music and festival production. As a longtime DJ, he used Clouted to promote and grow &Friends, a Manila-based electronic dance music and pop-culture festival that now draws over 20,000 people. Clouted 的联合创始人兼首席执行官 Justin Banusing 最初将公司的技术应用于他个人的爱好：电子音乐和音乐节制作。作为一名资深 DJ，他利用 Clouted 推广并壮大了 &Friends——这是一个位于马尼拉的电子舞曲和流行文化音乐节，如今已吸引超过 2 万人参加。
Clouted’s approach has caught investor interest. The startup just announced a $7 million seed round led by Slow Ventures, with participation from Gold House Ventures, Weekend Fund, Peak XV’s Surge, and others. Clouted 的方法引起了投资者的兴趣。该公司刚刚宣布完成 700 万美元的种子轮融资，由 Slow Ventures 领投，Gold House Ventures、Weekend Fund、Peak XV’s Surge 等机构参投。
Unlike purely volume-driven marketing tools, Clouted doesn’t just chase high clip counts. Instead, its AI operates a continuous testing loop, experimenting with different formats and channel strategies to figure out what actually performs best. The practical effect is that each campaign makes the next one more targeted and efficient, as the system accumulates data on what works. 与单纯追求数量的营销工具不同，Clouted 不仅仅追求高剪辑量。相反，其人工智能运行着一个持续的测试循环，通过尝试不同的格式和渠道策略来找出表现最好的方案。实际效果是，随着系统积累了关于“什么有效”的数据，每一次营销活动都会使下一次活动变得更加精准和高效。
Clouted works somewhat like penetration testing for social media algorithms — a concept borrowed from cybersecurity, where researchers probe a system’s defenses by attempting to break them. Rather than looking for security flaws, Clouted’s AI and its network of creators test thousands of different clipping and distribution approaches to identify what triggers a piece of content to go viral. Clouted 的工作方式有点像社交媒体算法的“渗透测试”——这是一个借用自网络安全的概念，即研究人员通过尝试攻破系统来探测其防御能力。Clouted 的人工智能及其创作者网络不是在寻找安全漏洞，而是测试数千种不同的剪辑和分发方法，以识别出是什么触发了内容的病毒式传播。
“The result is that every campaign Clouted runs makes the next one faster, smarter, and more effective,” Banusing told TechCrunch. “The platform learns which formats win, which audiences convert, and which distribution channels compound over time.” “结果是，Clouted 开展的每一次营销活动都让下一次变得更快、更智能、更有效，”Banusing 告诉 TechCrunch。“平台会学习哪些格式能胜出、哪些受众会转化，以及哪些分发渠道会随着时间的推移产生复利效应。”
While Clouted competes directly with similar startups like Overlap AI in the automated clipping space, Banusing said he looks to larger marketing infrastructure players, specifically CreatorIQ and Hightouch, as the ultimate competition. Hightouch recently crossed $100 million in ARR, suggesting that the enterprise marketing infrastructure space is large and still expanding. That’s the market Clouted is ultimately building toward. 虽然 Clouted 在自动化剪辑领域与 Overlap AI 等类似初创公司直接竞争，但 Banusing 表示，他将更大的营销基础设施参与者（特别是 CreatorIQ 和 Hightouch）视为最终的竞争对手。Hightouch 最近的年度经常性收入（ARR）突破了 1 亿美元，这表明企业营销基础设施市场规模巨大且仍在扩张。这正是 Clouted 最终瞄准的市场。