What Firsthand does

Firsthand is an AI agent platform built for the brand-publisher relationship, founded in 2023 and headquartered in New York City. The company deploys AI-powered Brand Agents that engage consumers in real-time conversations grounded in brand-approved content, and operates Lakebed, a proprietary data rights management layer that enables secure sharing of first-party data between publishers and brands. The platform is purpose-built to address two persistent problems in digital advertising: declining performance of traditional ad formats and growing friction around first-party data utilization under tightening privacy regulation.

The company serves two customer segments: publishers (who deploy Brand Agents to monetize audience engagement and surface commercial intent signals) and brands across retail, financial services, and travel verticals (who use the platform to deliver personalized, AI-mediated consumer interactions). Its technology combines knowledge retrieval from curated brand content with predictive analytics derived from agent interactions, creating a data flywheel that improves agent performance over time. Lakebed functions as the governance and rights-clearing substrate that lets both parties transact on data without violating publisher or consumer trust constraints.

Firsthand's go-to-market is enterprise-led, with custom-quote pricing that signals large-contract economics typical of publisher and Fortune-500 brand deals. The company has raised a Series A led by Radical Ventures and operates with 11-50 employees. Its founders — Jonathan Heller, Michael Rubenstein, and Wei Wei — bring direct operational lineage from DoubleClick, AppNexus, and FreeWheel, providing deep domain credibility in the programmatic and publisher monetization stack that the platform targets.

Name

Firsthand

Legal name

Firsthand

Website

https://firsthand.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Firsthand is an AI-native platform that deploys Brand Agents and the Lakebed data-rights layer to help publishers monetize audience engagement and enable brands in retail, financial services, and travel to deliver AI-mediated consumer interactions grounded in approved content.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Brand Agent Platform Subscription: Platform access for creating and deploying AI-powered Brand Agent campaigns. Pricing is enterprise/quotes-based, targeting large marketers and publishers.
2. AI-Powered Advertising: Brand Agents serve as an AI-powered ad solution for publishers, creating new revenue streams by offering adaptive, contextually relevant brand experiences.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Firsthand provides an AI-powered Brand Agent Platform that enables marketers and publishers to deploy AI agents that engage consumers with personalized, real-time content. The platform combines Brand Agents (AI-powered brand representatives embedded in digital properties) with Lakebed™, a proprietary AI-era data and knowledge rights management solution that maintains brand control over content. It replaces static digital ads with adaptive, conversational AI experiences distributed across brand-owned sites and premium publisher partner properties.

Product overview

Firsthand offers the Firsthand Brand Agent Platform™, an AI agent platform for marketers and publishers. The platform consists of two integrated components: Brand Agents (AI-powered brand representatives embedded in digital properties that deliver adaptive, real-time personalized experiences to consumers) and Lakebed™ (an AI-era data and knowledge rights management solution that safeguards brand content and controls how knowledge is accessed and used by AI). Together, these products enable brands to engage consumers across owned sites and partner publisher properties, replacing static ads with dynamic AI-powered interactions.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Lakebed: Firsthand's AI-era data and knowledge rights management solution that keeps brands in full control of their content and data.

Products and services

• Firsthand Brand Agent Platform An AI-native platform enabling marketers and publishers to create and deploy AI-powered Brand Agent campaigns that dynamically respond to consumers' real-time needs, combining Lakebed for data rights management with generative Brand Agents.
• Brand Agents AI-powered brand representatives that live inside digital experiences where consumers seek information, dynamically adapting to page context and individual consumer needs to deliver personalized guidance, product recommendations, and brand interactions in real time.
• Lakebed Firsthand's AI-era data and knowledge rights management solution that gives content owners full ownership of their knowledge assets and control over where, when, and by whom their content is used by AI, enabling secure data sharing between brand and publisher partners.

Quantifiable outcome

• 3-5x higher engagement rates vs. traditional digital ad benchmarks
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability7 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Typeface: Typeface offers an enterprise generative AI platform for marketers to create personalized brand content and campaigns. It targets the same marketer buyer with AI-driven personalized content experiences, making it a closely comparable AI-for-marketing platform.
• Jasper: Jasper provides an enterprise AI marketing platform for content creation, brand voice consistency, and campaign personalization. It competes with Firsthand for enterprise marketing AI budgets and shares the same brand-safe AI positioning.

Emerging players

• Mutiny: Mutiny offers an AI-powered website personalization platform for B2B marketers, dynamically tailoring content to visitor segments. It overlaps with Firsthand's adaptive content delivery on owned brand properties.
• Cognitiv: Cognitiv is an AI-driven programmatic media buying platform focused on deep learning for advertising campaigns. It overlaps with Firsthand's value proposition of AI-driven personalization and brand campaign performance.
• Drift: Drift (now part of Salesloft) provides conversational AI for marketing and sales, offering personalized buyer experiences on brand properties. It is comparable to Firsthand's conversational Brand Agent approach, though more sales-funnel oriented.
• 6sense: 6sense uses AI to power account-based marketing and buyer journey orchestration for enterprise marketers. It shares Firsthand's emphasis on AI-driven personalization and deep insights into buyer intent.
• Constructor: Constructor provides AI-powered product discovery and personalization for retailers, similar in spirit to Firsthand's adaptive content delivery for retail brands. It is a relevant peer in the personalized AI shopping experience category.

Broad incumbents

• The Trade Desk: The Trade Desk is a leading independent programmatic ad buying platform serving both brands and publishers at massive scale. It competes for the same ad budgets and publisher relationships that Firsthand is targeting, though without an agentic AI layer.
• Criteo: Criteo operates a large AI-driven commerce marketing platform, including retargeting and personalized ad serving for retailers and brands. It is comparable as an incumbent AI advertising player with overlapping marketer and publisher relationships.
• AppLovin: AppLovin operates an AI-powered advertising platform (AXON) with significant investments in agentic and personalized ad delivery. It is a relevant incumbent reference point for AI-native advertising at scale.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/firsthandlabs
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/99490191

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors4 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Firsthand