Nodals AI, a cutting-edge media buying platform designed to transform digital advertising on the open internet, has raised £2M in pre-seed funding to accelerate the development and adoption of its groundbreaking infrastructure. Nodals empower advertisers to securely harness media owners’ first-party data, unlocking significant performance gains while advancing sustainability.
The platform enables advertisers to achieve over twice the performance of traditional datasets by directly accessing media owners’ first-party data. Nodals’ proprietary infrastructure ensures that first-party data is accessible at scale, protects consumer privacy and reduces carbon emissions by up to 75%. With built-in artificial intelligence, the platform allows custom advertiser algorithms to operate securely on media owners’ data, delivering incremental outcomes for media buyers.
Funding to fuel growth and innovation
The £2M pre-seed funding round was led by prominent European VC Stride.VC and US-based AdTech-focused Aperiam, with additional support from angel investors, including Brian O’Kelley, CEO and co-founder of Scope3, a trusted source for supply chain emissions data. The investment will accelerate Nodals’ product development, expand its team, and strengthen partnerships with advertisers and media owners globally.
Fred Destin, Founder of Stride.VC, said: “I hadn’t seen a project in AdTech I really wanted to back since I invested in Integral Ad Science back in 2010. Nodals features a full team of AdTech insiders attacking the biggest issue in the industry right now – audience-based targeting.”
Eric Franchi, General Partner at Aperiam, said: “Nodals represents the future of media buying: innovative use of media owners’ first-party data, performance-driven outcomes, and sustainability built for the AI era. The strength of this team and their approach is unmatched, and we’re proud to support their mission.”
Brian O’Kelley, CEO and co-founder of Scope3, added: “It’s exciting to see new technology designed with carbon efficiency at its core. Nodals is transforming sustainability in the advertising industry by integrating carbon-conscious innovation with cutting-edge AI, delivering a solution that is both sustainable and performance-driven.”
A team with deep expertise in AdTech
Nodals’ founding team boasts decades of experience building some of the most innovative advertising technologies. Aly Nurmohamed, an early employee at Criteo and former COO at Permutive, is joined by engineers Ed Barnes, Sam Adu, and Octavio Martin, who have built advertising infrastructure at Doubleclick, Google, and Yahoo over the past 20 years. James Phipps, who has led sales teams at Amazon Advertising and AOL, rounds out the Nodals team.
Kumar Amrendra, Head of Digital Marketing, Planning, and Data Science at Sky, will be joining the company as an Advisor. He said: “The value of media owners’ first-party data has long been recognised, but AI-driven innovation is now transforming how advertisers can securely and sustainably access and activate high-quality data. We are at a pivotal moment where this potential can finally be realised in a privacy-first and scalable way. Nodals is bridging this gap by providing the tools advertisers need to harness first-party data more effectively—driving better performance while maintaining responsibility. That’s why I’m excited to join Nodals on this journey, helping reshape the future of digital advertising in a way that is both privacy-conscious and commercially impactful.”