Funds, Hire, Launch for Creative Analytics Firm Motion

Creative analytics and research platform Motion has raised $30m in Series B funding, with which to accelerate its product roadmap and recruitment; appointed YouTube and ad industry influencer Dara Denney as Chief Evangelist; and launched a new suite of tools including a brand intel function.

Motion says it believes advertising is returning to an era where 'conducting customer research, storytelling and craftsmanship are all essential once again', but notes that 'while the principles are timeless, the digital world is a very different environment'. Its stated mission is to serve 'creative strategists' - a role exploding in numbers from a recently small base - by building them the tools they need to produce more successful ads on paid social media. This includes competitor tracking with analysis of their media mix, messaging and landing pages.

The company, which is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, has doubled in size to 50 employees in the last year and grown to more than 1,000 customers, spread across the DTC, ecommerce, B2B SaaS and consumer app verticals.

CEO Reza Khadjavi (pictured) introduced the new products with a quote from ad industry legend David Ogilvy: 'Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals'. Creative Research builds on Motion's existing Creative Analytics package, is free to use and includes three main components: Brand Intel, Collections and Swipe File. The first of these helps users track their competitors and brands they respect, to learn from the creative they're producing.

Denney boasts a following of 75,000 YouTube subscribers, 77,000 TikTok followers, and 32,000 on Instagram, and the firm says she will 'help it create some of the best creative strategy training the world has ever seen', as well as helping to imagine and develop new features.

The funding round, which adds to a total of $12m raised earlier, was led by Inovia with participation from Threshold Ventures as well as existing investors Headline, Abstract Ventures and Sugar Capital. The money will be used to develop the platform further and for multiple hires in engineering, product management, marketing, customer success and sales.

Web site: www.motionapp.com .