At Canaan, we’re not afraid of big swings. Backed by technical muscle and deep founder-market fit, big swings can shake up industries others had long written off. Or, simply written off for far too long.
That’s why we’re excited to announce that Canaan is leading Valid’s seed round. Valid isn’t just another marketing tech tool or vertical agent play. Valid is rethinking what an ad agency can be, from the account manager to the creative, replacing human creatives and media buyers with AI to deliver better-performing ads, faster and cheaper than traditional firms ever would. We refer to this model as the "infinitely-scalable ad agency" and it doesn’t take a leap of imagination to understand why. Valid is leading a full-scale reinvention of how ads are created, optimized, and deployed.
Valid pairs the best front-end dashboard software with back-end automations to classify, optimize, and deploy ads based on real-time and historical performance, not gut instinct. Its LLM-powered system makes real-time strategic decisions, optimizing ad spend and creative execution with an efficiency (and cost-savings for advertisers) no human team could match. Every dollar works harder because every decision is data-driven. Valid is already driving real impact and unlocking millions of dollars in revenue for dozens of its clients, across a host of categories.
Advertising has played by the same rules for decades – until now. The global digital advertising market is worth $600+ billion annually, with projections to surpass $1 trillion by 2030. And while many brands rely on agencies for ad execution, those agencies often come with bloated fees and subpar results. Clients hop from one agency to the next, hoping that their paid spend will somehow improve. Valid represents a fundamentally new approach to this paradigm, equipping their clients with the tools and performance to build a lasting and growing relationship with their agency.
Founders Rahul Bhardwaj and Zean Tsoi combine deep technical expertise with firsthand advertising experience. You’ve truly never met such technical ad wonks in your life. Joined by existing investors Neo and J Ventures, Canaan is proud to be backing these two as they build the most effective agency of the future.