What Cluep does

Cluep is a Toronto-based mobile advertising technology company founded in 2012 that operates an AI-driven targeting platform aimed at major consumer brands and agencies. The platform analyzes publicly posted social media content across multiple modalities — text, audio, images, and video — alongside work profiles and physical location visits, to infer consumer feelings, visual interests, professional attributes, and lifestyle signals. Its core product is Soma, an autonomous Advertising AI Agent, supported by a five-product signal suite: Feel Signals (NLP on text/audio), See Signals (computer vision on images/video), Work Signals (professional profile targeting, including B2B and healthcare professional audiences), Place Signals (location visit analysis with privacy features such as Location Fuzzing), and the Check add-on that layers a second signal type for composite audience qualification.

Cluep generates revenue by selling targeted advertising services to brand marketers and agencies on a quote-based enterprise pricing model, distributing ads outside social platforms into premium sites and apps across mobile and desktop. The go-to-market motion is direct enterprise field sales, with demo requests and case studies (e.g., McDonald's 1.3% CTR and 17% brand-visit lift) as the primary conversion mechanism. The customer base comprises 19 named Fortune 500 brands spanning automotive, retail, food and beverage, technology, healthcare, apparel, and airlines — including McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Nike, Amazon, Audi, BMW, Microsoft, Samsung, Toyota, Unilever, and United Airlines. Marketing relies primarily on earned media coverage in Fast Company, Digiday, Engadget, and Business Insider.

The company operates with 11–50 employees and has only one disclosed funding event on record — a $500,000 round in September 2018 — suggesting either minimal external capital or undisclosed subsequent financing. No founder-investor relationships, patents, certifications, or formal partnership agreements are documented, and the data set contains no M&A activity, regulatory actions, or restructuring events.

Name

Cluep

Legal name

Cluep

Website

https://cluep.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cluep is an AI-powered mobile ad-targeting platform that analyzes public social media content — text, audio, images, video, work profiles, and location visits — to deliver emotion- and intent-based ads for Fortune 500 consumer brands across automotive, retail, F&B, and technology.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Digital Advertising Technology

NAICS

Advertising Agencies (541810), Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (541910)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Social, Community & Creator Platform Feeds (HDAAAGAD)

Keywords

• AI advertising platform
• Social media targeting
• Audience signals
• Programmatic ad targeting
• Consumer sentiment analysis

Headquarters

HQ city

Toronto

HQ country

Canada

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Advertising Technology Platform: Cluep generates revenue by providing AI-powered advertising targeting services to brands and marketers. The platform analyzes consumer social signals to deliver targeted advertisements outside social platforms in premium sites and apps across mobile and desktop.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

Cluep operates an AI-powered ad platform that targets consumers based on what they publicly share, how they feel, and where they have been. The company analyzes multimodal public social content—including text, audio, images, videos, work profiles, and location data—to help brands identify and engage audiences whose expressed sentiment and context align with campaign objectives.

Product overview

Cluep is an advertising AI platform that offers a unified product ecosystem centered around its AI Agent called 'Soma'. The platform consists of five core signal-based targeting products: Feel Signals (analyzes text and audio), See Signals (analyzes images and video), Work Signals (analyzes work profiles), Place Signals (analyzes physical locations), and Check (an add-on module that applies a second product criteria for audience qualification). The products work together to enable brands to advertise to consumers based on their publicly expressed feelings, visual content they share, professional attributes, and physical locations visited.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Soma An AI agent for advertising that autonomously executes ad-related tasks on behalf of brands using Cluep's signal-based targeting capabilities.
• Feel Signals A signal product that analyzes how people feel by interpreting sentiment from public social content, used by brands to target based on consumer mood.
• See Signals A signal product that analyzes images and videos shared publicly by consumers, enabling brands to target based on visual context.
• Work Signals A signal product that interprets consumers' work profiles and professional context to inform brand targeting.
• Place Signals A signal product that uses location-based data to identify and target consumers based on where they have been.
• Check An earlier Cluep product/mascot referenced in the company's history, associated with its AI-driven ad platform roots.

Quantifiable outcome

• 1.3% Click-Through Rate for McDonald's campaign
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers19 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability8 records

Feature5 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• GumGum: AI-powered contextual advertising platform that analyzes content (text, image, video) to deliver relevant ads without relying on cookies. Closest direct comparable to Cluep's multi-signal AI approach to ad targeting.
• StackAdapt: Programmatic native and display advertising platform using AI for audience targeting and campaign optimization. Comparable mid-market AdTech peer serving enterprise brand marketers with AI-driven targeting.
• 4C Insights: Audience and social advertising platform that analyzes social media engagement data to inform cross-channel media planning. Directly comparable AI-powered social-signal targeting approach to Cluep.
• Resonate: AI-driven consumer intelligence and audience targeting platform that analyzes psychographics, values, and media behavior. Comparable in using AI to infer consumer sentiment and intent for ad targeting.

Broad incumbents

• The Trade Desk: Large independent programmatic DSP offering AI-driven audience targeting across channels. Broad incumbent in the same ad-buying space but at significantly larger scale with broader channel coverage than Cluep's social-signal approach.
• MediaMath: Enterprise programmatic media-buying platform with AI-driven audience targeting capabilities. Broader incumbent offering cross-channel buying versus Cluep's social-signal focus.
• LiveRamp: Data connectivity and identity resolution platform powering audience targeting across the ad ecosystem. Adjacent in enabling data-driven targeting at enterprise scale, with broader data infrastructure scope.
• Taboola: Content discovery and native advertising platform using AI for content and audience recommendations. Comparable AI-recommendation approach to ad serving, though focused on content discovery placements.
• Oracle Advertising: Oracle's advertising and audience targeting solutions (formerly Grapeshot/Moat) providing contextual AI targeting for premium publishers. Large incumbent in contextual and audience AI for advertising.

Emerging players

• Affinity Answers: Audience targeting platform that uses social media affinity data to identify high-value consumers for ad campaigns. Direct smaller-scale competitor in social-signal-based audience targeting.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/cluepinc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

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 Cluep