In one sentence, what is your product/service?

Machine is the first company to aggregate mobile advertising technologies in one A.I. platform, allowing advertisers to create, execute and measure mobile programmatic campaigns all from one place.

What problem(s) does it solve?

Effectively we want to do for mobile advertising what Uber, Airbnb and MoneySuperMarket.com did for their industries. We aggregate a confusing, inefficient and congested marketplace, giving the user one point of entry to the entire market.

The mobile programmatic marketplace is booming but remains staggeringly complicated.

To deliver a successful mobile campaign advertisers, media agencies and brands have had to navigate a variety of technologies and partners (think Demand Side Platforms, Supply Side Platforms, geolocation services, operating systems, retargeting services), all of which need to speak back and forth to each other without disruption.

If one of these technologies slows or breaks, the campaign slows or breaks too, and often the advertiser won’t know why.

Machine solves this problem. It’s a single piece of machine learning technology that sits on top of the mobile advertising ecosystem.

By tapping into individual technology vendors’ APIs (e.g. DSPs, ad networks etc.), Machine can execute a campaign by switching between the vendors and tools that are working most efficiently and effectively at any given moment.

So, not only is the campaign far simpler to run and measure from using one platform and one dashboard, but Machine’s algorithm ensures that the campaign is always operating at the top of the market.

Simplified RTB ecosystem (click through to access full infographic)

rtb ecosystem

What were the biggest challenges involved in building the tech or growing your team?

Growing the team wasn’t too hard, since we’ve all worked with one another in some capacity over the years.

Building the technology was more challenging though. We’re solving a very complex problem – creating greater efficiency in mobile advertising – so it’s like unravelling a ball of knots.

Even with our experience, we’ve been surprised by what we’ve found.

How will the company make money?

The primary business model for Machine is software as a service (SaaS). Clients with the internal resource can manage their mobile advertising campaign directly through the Machine User Interface.  

Machine will charge a monthly licence and usage fee.

As a secondary service, we offer fully-managed service to advertisers/media agencies, who do not have the resource internally to manage their mobile advertising campaigns.

Who is in your team?

Our team is currently made up of eight industry experts who have 100+ years of commercial and technical experience between them.

Machine was founded by Gary Danks (Machine’s managing director) and Danny Jones (Machine’s director).

Gary is one of the UK’s leading experts on mobile advertising. Previously the UK managing director of YOC, the mobile advertising pioneer listed on the German stock exchange, Gary has 20 years experience in media sales, management and product development.

Danny is a highly experienced strategic business, marketing and brand consultant. He’s worked with businesses big and small, from global brands like Sony and Hermes to a host of startups.

Robert Pawlowicz leads Machine’s tech team. Robert has 16 years senior project management and solutions architect experience working in businesses like the BBC, Channel 4 and Diesel.

A frame from the Machine website.

machine

Where would you like to be in one, three and five years’ time?

We’re seven months into our first year and the market response to Machine has been overwhelming.  

While we have a robust revenue stream already, we’re excited about accelerating the growth of the business so our first year focus is on raising seed round funding, which we’ve just started doing.  

In three to five years we want to have established Machine as the industry standard tool for mobile and digital advertising.

Other than your own, what are your favourite websites/apps/tools?

Anything that improves buying and user experience is of interest to us. Platforms like Airbnb, Uber and MoneySuperMarket.com have changed huge industries by offering a beautifully simple user buying experience.

For more on programmatic advertising, see our roundup of 2015 and predictions for 2016.