Pitch deck reveals how an AI startup that helps brands like Google and Microsoft plan their marketing raised $15 million Summary List Placement BlueOcean, a software-as-a-service startup that uses AI to help brands develop and tweak their marketing strategies, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Private equity firm Insight Partners, which has invested in tech platforms and software companies such as Twitter, Shopify, and Calm, led the round. BlueOcean was started in 2019 by ad agency vets Grant McDougall, who is CEO; Liza Nebel, COO and president; and Matt Gross, chief data scientist. They operated in beta for two years and have Microsoft , Google, Cisco, Bloomingdale''s, and Diageo as clients. McDougall said the founders saw an opening in using machine learning to simplify market research and inform marketers about their own performance and that of competitors. BlueOcean, which operates on a subscription model, gathers real-time data from public sources like corporate websites, social media posts, financial filings, consumer data, and responses to ad campaigns. It then recommends ways for CMOs to adjust to competitors'' moves, market changes, and their own performance, McDougall said.