MUMBAI: Nearly two-fifths of the $1 trillion sloshed around global advertising each year vanishes into the ether—wasted on botched targeting, feeble creative and sheer duplication. Climaty AI reckons it can plug the leak.
The Dubai-based startup, which bills itself as the world’s first “CliMarTech” company, has secured $2m in early-stage funding led by Turbostart to build what it calls an agentic AI ecosystem—self-learning marketing infrastructure that optimises campaigns in real time whilst measuring their carbon footprint.
Founded by Neel Pandya, former chief executive of AI startup Pixis (which he helped scale to $225m in funding), Climaty AI deploys four AI-powered agents—Campaign Builder, Creator, Optimizer and Analytics—to automate the grunt work and free media planners to focus on strategy rather than spreadsheets.
The funding will bankroll expansion across Asia-Pacific, EMEA, Britain and north America, where demand for sustainable marketing is climbing. Climaty AI has already run pilots with Opella and tested its platform across edtech, consumer healthcare, automotive and consumer goods sectors.
“Marketing platforms of the future will combine performance with accountability. Climaty AI is shaping this new standard with CliMarTech and agentic AI,” said Bengaluru-based venture and accelerator fund Turbostart founder Ganesh Raju.
Pandya, who spent two decades at L’Oréal, Vodafone and GroupM before diving into AI, argued that the most successful brands will treat accountability as a performance driver rather than a cost centre. “Agentic AI and sustainability are at the core of everything we do,” he said.
The pitch: smarter campaigns, measurable results, and a smaller carbon footprint—performance and responsibility in one package. Whether agencies and brands buy it remains to be seen, but with $370 billion going up in smoke annually, there’s certainly room for improvement.