Investing in Clouted
Share
Share
Share
by Hyung Kim and Kinuko Kitabatake
Why We Invested in Clouted
Every brand, artist, and startup today is a publisher. The content is there. The problem is distribution — and most teams are still guessing.
I first came across Clouted through their work in music and entertainment. Justin Banusing, CEO and co-founder, understood this problem firsthand — as a DJ and festival producer, he watched talented artists go unheard not because their work wasn’t good, but because distribution was broken. He built Clouted so no one has to figure that out alone.
（launch video link）
What Clouted Does
Clouted is the Virality Engine for consumer and entertainment brands, powered by what the team calls Distribution Intelligence. Their AI agents ingest a brand’s strategy, content library, and digital presence to generate data-driven campaign plans — then execute them autonomously across clipping, UGC, fan pages, influencer seeding, performance ads, and viral stunts on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X.
What separates Clouted from execution-only tools is what happens after a campaign ends. Every video analyzed, every format tested, every optimization made feeds back into the platform’s intelligence layer. It learns which formats win, which audiences convert, and which channels compound — making every subsequent campaign faster and more effective. Distribution Intelligence doesn’t just run campaigns. It builds a moat.
The numbers validate the approach: over 1 billion views generated since October 2025, 250+ campaigns executed across entertainment, music, gaming, and consumer brands, and a creator network of 100,000+ globally. In a campaign with Liquid State and ILLENIUM, Clouted delivered 30M+ views in two weeks. That's the kind of result we expect to see compound over time.
A structurally broken market with a differentiated solution
Traditional paid media costs keep climbing while organic reach declines. Brands are trapped paying platform taxes for diminishing returns. Clouted flips the model: clients pay a flat CPM to distribute through authentic creator networks. In the ILLENIUM campaign, Clouted delivered $0.32 effective CPM at 3x overdelivery against target. For entertainment and music brands, those are meaningful numbers.
Compounding intelligence creates durable competitive advantage
Most marketing tools are execution layers. They run a campaign and move on. Clouted’s platform accumulates brand-specific intelligence over time — learning winning formats, refining content libraries, and surfacing optimization signals faster than any human team could act on. Every campaign makes the next one smarter. The moat grows with every post.
The right team, the right market, the right moment
The creator economy is projected to roughly double in size by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs Research. 92% of consumers trust peer-generated content over brand advertising, yet only 16% of brands have a dedicated UGC strategy. The gap between what brands know they need and what they can actually execute is enormous — and closing it requires infrastructure, not just tooling.
Justin and co-founder Adriel Yong bring rare crossover experience across product, content operations, and enterprise go-to-market. They’ve already proven they can execute at scale.
For us at ZVC, the Clouted investment also reflects a specific conviction around Asia. The ILLENIUM campaigns — executed in partnership with Liquid State, the pan-Asian label backed by Sony Music Entertainment and Tencent Music Entertainment — demonstrated that Clouted's platform is already producing results in culturally nuanced Asian markets.
K-pop and J-pop fandoms are among the most distribution-savvy audiences in the world. The infrastructure Clouted is building maps directly onto those communities. That's a market we know well, and one we believe Clouted is positioned to win.
Why Now
Short-form content has become the primary discovery surface across every consumer vertical. Creator networks have matured to a point where quality and consistency are achievable at scale. And as signal loss compounds in the post-privacy advertising landscape, the structural case for owned distribution infrastructure only strengthens.
The window to build the category-defining platform in Distribution Intelligence is open — but network effects and data moats accrue quickly to whoever moves first. Clouted is already moving. We’re proud to back Justin, Adriel, and the Clouted team as they make distribution the moat it was always meant to be.
About Clouted
Websiteclouted.com
LinkedIn:Clouted
