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Mega raises $11.5M to replace marketing agencies with AI-powered growth engine for SMBs
Business

Mega raises $11.5M to replace marketing agencies with AI-powered growth engine for SMBs

by March 9, 2026

AI marketing platform Mega has secured $11.5 million in Series A funding to accelerate the rollout of its AI-driven growth engine designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses.

The Brooklyn-based company aims to replace traditional marketing agencies with a network of autonomous AI agents capable of managing digital growth channels end-to-end. These agents execute and optimise search engine optimisation (SEO), paid advertising, website management and emerging AI search channels, delivering what the company describes as predictable customer acquisition without the overhead and variability associated with agency services.

The funding round was led by Goodwater Capital, with additional participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Atreides Management, SignalFire and Kearny Jackson. The round also attracted a group of high-profile angel investors including WNBA stars Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum and Nneka Ogwumike.

Mega’s platform is designed to address what its founders see as a structural problem facing small businesses in the digital economy: the expectation that they compete across complex marketing channels typically optimised for large enterprises.

Most small businesses must manage search marketing, paid advertising, websites and emerging AI-driven discovery platforms simultaneously, yet often lack the budget, time or expertise to do so effectively. Traditional agencies can be expensive and inconsistent, while existing AI tools frequently require significant technical knowledge and manual input.

Mega’s solution delivers marketing execution through software rather than dashboards or toolkits. Once a business signs up, the platform autonomously plans campaigns, executes tasks and continuously optimises performance.

From the customer’s perspective, the system functions like an outsourced growth team that operates automatically.

“We realised early that business owners do not want another AI chat tool that requires hours of prompting,” said Lucas Pellan, co-founder of Mega. “They want customers. So we built a system that actually does the work.”

Mega’s technology relies on a network of specialised AI agents that coordinate marketing activities across multiple digital channels.

The platform currently focuses on four primary areas: SEO, paid advertising, website optimisation and what the company calls GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), which refers to optimising visibility within AI-driven search and discovery systems.

The system plans campaigns, launches them, tests variations and adjusts strategies based on performance data collected across its entire user base.

According to the company, around 55 per cent of the work performed by the system is fully automated, while 35 per cent is largely automated with human oversight. The remaining 10 per cent is completed manually by specialist operators to ensure quality control and strategic guidance.

This hybrid structure allows the company to scale marketing execution while maintaining reliability and performance standards.

Every campaign executed through the system feeds data back into Mega’s platform, improving the algorithms that generate creative assets, refine targeting, manage bids and optimise conversions.

Mega’s creation emerged from an unexpected origin story.

The founding team was originally building a video game company during the Covid pandemic when the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT sparked a series of internal experiments with AI tools to accelerate their own marketing growth.

Using the tools they developed internally, the company’s organic search traffic increased 100-fold while paid customer acquisition costs fell by roughly 80 per cent.

When the founders shared the tools with other entrepreneurs, demand quickly grew.

“We kept hearing the same question from founders: ‘Can we use this too?’,” Pellan said.

This demand prompted the team to pivot away from gaming and develop the platform into a standalone growth product for SMBs.

Mega’s early growth has been rapid. The company reports that it went from zero to $10 million in revenue within ten months of launching its platform.

Customers span a wide range of industries, including home services companies, law firms, healthcare providers, e-commerce brands and software businesses.

In one example cited by the company, a Texas-based medical spa increased its search traffic by 174 times using the platform’s automated SEO tools. A personal injury law firm saw a 243-fold increase in search visibility and began ranking in the top three for key search terms.

Another client, a direct-to-consumer health brand, generated $120,000 in revenue through its website while surpassing its Amazon marketplace performance without increasing advertising spend.

Across its customer base, Mega claims the platform helps businesses grow around 20 per cent faster on average.

For many clients, the appeal lies in removing the complexity of managing digital marketing tools and agencies.

Darin Chase, a home services business owner using the platform, said: “Since working with Mega we are finally getting a predictable lead flow. We are also able to divert our time away from Facebook marketing to other important projects because Mega manages everything.”

Mega is targeting the vast SMB marketing sector across North America, where tens of thousands of agencies serve millions of small businesses.

Despite the size of the market, many SMBs continue to struggle with inconsistent marketing performance, unpredictable customer acquisition costs and limited visibility into which strategies actually generate revenue.

As digital advertising becomes increasingly competitive and search ecosystems shift toward AI-driven discovery, many smaller businesses are finding it harder to compete with enterprise-level marketing operations.

Investors believe Mega’s approach represents a major shift in how growth services can be delivered.

“Mega represents a fundamental shift in how SMBs should think about marketing, from paying for effort to paying for measurable, repeatable growth,” said Vivek Subramanian, partner and chief product officer at Goodwater Capital.

With the new funding secured, Mega plans to expand its platform beyond its current capabilities.

Future development will include AI-driven management of email marketing, outbound sales campaigns, organic social media growth, lead qualification and sales operations.

The company’s long-term vision is to create a fully automated revenue-generation infrastructure that allows small and mid-sized businesses to access enterprise-level marketing capabilities without enterprise-level costs.

The platform could eventually act as a unified growth system that manages the entire customer acquisition pipeline for SMBs.

If successful, Mega believes its model could fundamentally reshape how smaller companies approach marketing in the AI era.

By replacing manual marketing workflows with automated systems capable of continuous optimisation, the company aims to give smaller businesses the ability to compete with much larger organisations in increasingly competitive digital markets.

Read more:
Mega raises $11.5M to replace marketing agencies with AI-powered growth engine for SMBs

March 9, 2026
BIOCAPTIVA raises £1.58m to transform liquid biopsy sample preparation
Business

BIOCAPTIVA raises £1.58m to transform liquid biopsy sample preparation

by March 9, 2026

A Scottish life sciences start-up developing technology to improve cancer diagnostics has secured £1.58 million in fresh funding as it launches its first commercial product in the United States.

BIOCAPTIVA, a spin-out from University of Edinburgh, is aiming to tackle one of the most persistent technical bottlenecks in the rapidly growing liquid biopsy sector: the preparation of blood samples for genetic testing.

The company’s newly launched msX technology uses magnetic bead extraction to isolate cell-free DNA directly from whole blood, eliminating several complex steps normally required in sample preparation. The approach could significantly accelerate cancer research and diagnostic testing by making the process faster, more scalable and easier to automate.

The latest investment round was led by Archangels and supported by existing investors including Old College Capital, BBI Solutions and Scottish Enterprise, alongside new investor EverQuest Capital Partners.

Liquid biopsy, a technique that analyses genetic material from blood samples rather than tumour tissue, has become one of the most promising developments in cancer diagnostics in recent years. It enables clinicians and researchers to detect cancer-related genetic changes through simple blood tests, reducing the need for invasive surgical biopsies.

However, preparing blood samples to isolate usable genetic material remains a complex and time-consuming process. Traditional methods typically require centrifugation equipment, multiple reagents and extensive laboratory handling, all of which slow down analysis and increase costs.

BIOCAPTIVA’s patented msX platform aims to simplify this process. By using specialised magnetic beads, the system captures cell-free DNA directly from whole blood samples without the need for centrifuges or additional reagents.

The result is higher-quality DNA extraction with faster processing times and fewer technical steps, improvements that could allow laboratories to process larger volumes of samples more efficiently.

Chief executive Jeremy Wheeler said the technology addresses a long-standing gap in cancer research workflows.

“Scientists and technologists are doing remarkable work with the samples they receive, but the preparation stage hasn’t evolved significantly for years,” he said.

“Our msX platform has the potential to revolutionise how samples are collected and processed, enabling larger sample volumes, faster extraction and fully automatable workflows.”

The company has already begun commercialising the technology internationally, launching its msX bead kits for research use in Boston earlier this month.

The move reflects BIOCAPTIVA’s strategy to build early validation and research partnerships in the United States, one of the world’s largest markets for oncology diagnostics and biotechnology innovation.

By placing the technology in the hands of research laboratories, the company hopes to generate evidence across multiple applications in cancer detection, genetic testing and clinical diagnostics.

The liquid biopsy market itself is expected to grow rapidly over the coming decade as non-invasive diagnostic methods become increasingly important in personalised medicine.

Industry analysts estimate that global demand for liquid biopsy technologies could reach tens of billions of dollars annually as healthcare systems adopt earlier cancer detection and monitoring techniques.

Alongside the funding announcement, BIOCAPTIVA also confirmed the appointment of Alan Schafer as chief technology officer.

Schafer brings more than three decades of experience in genetics technologies and molecular diagnostics. His career includes senior leadership roles across several high-profile biotech companies.

He previously served as CTO of Inivata, which was acquired by NeoGenomics in 2021 for $415 million.

His earlier roles include chief executive positions at Population Genetics Technologies and 14M Genomics, as well as serving as global vice-president of technology development at GlaxoSmithKline.

The company believes Schafer’s experience in scaling diagnostics technologies will help accelerate the commercialisation of its platform.

The £1.58 million investment will primarily be used to expand research and development and broaden BIOCAPTIVA’s product portfolio.

Future applications for the technology could extend beyond cancer diagnostics into other areas of genetic testing and molecular medicine.

Sarah Hardy, head of new investment at Archangels, said the company was entering a critical stage in its development.

“BIOCAPTIVA is reaching an inflection point with the launch of its msX beads,” she said.

“The technology has remarkable market potential, and the business now has the leadership team, research capability and commercial strategy needed to scale.”

The investment also reflects continued momentum in Scotland’s life sciences sector, which has become an important driver of economic growth and high-value employment.

Derek Shaw, director of entrepreneurship and investment at Scottish Enterprise, said the agency’s support for BIOCAPTIVA demonstrates a broader commitment to scaling innovative companies emerging from Scottish universities.

“Our investment highlights our focus on increasing capital investment in Scotland’s businesses,” he said.

“Supporting companies like BIOCAPTIVA helps drive productivity, expand exports and create higher-value jobs across the economy.”

As BIOCAPTIVA expands its research partnerships and product development pipeline, the company hopes its technology will help accelerate advances in cancer detection and treatment.

For Wheeler, the long-term ambition is clear.

“In practice, this technology means faster, deeper research on cancer and potentially better outcomes for millions of patients worldwide,” he said.

Read more:
BIOCAPTIVA raises £1.58m to transform liquid biopsy sample preparation

March 9, 2026
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