See the 9-page pitch deck Insense, a startup helping e-commerce brands get low-cost ads, used to raise $2.5 million

• Insense is a platform that connects creators to e-commerce brands to make “user-generated content” ads.
• Because of the recent UGC boom, the company has increased revenue by 3x year-over-year.
• Read the pitch deck that helped raise $2.5 million from VCs and businesses in a Pre-Series A round.

Brothers Danil and Anton Saliukov and their cofounder Alexander Fedorenko made a wise call to launch a “UGC” content company in 2016. UGC, or user-generated content, refers to when someone makes authentic-seeming social content for a brand to use in advertising.

Their bet is paying off amid a recent UGC gold rush fueled by platforms like TikTok.

Insense is on track for an 8-figure revenue this year, Danil told Insider. The company has grown its revenue threefold since 2021, and has raised $5.2 million in total from venture capitalists, businesses, and even other creators, to help secure its imprint in the creator e-commerce sector.

Some of its major investors are Trestle Partners, Flyer One Ventures, Metropolis Ventures, AvanTech Ventures, and Andrew Filev, the CEO of Wrike.

“Business is going through the roof,” Danil said. “We are in a great space right now. One of the reasons is the creator economy and the strong demand for user-generated content.”

Insense is a platform that connects creators to e-commerce brands to help them create mobile marketing campaigns. It currently has a network of over 20,000 creators who make video and static images for a client base of over 500 businesses. Some of its biggest clients include McDonald’s and Uber, but these days, Insense is focused on working with mid-sized e-commerce companies who are heavily investing in UGC marketing.

UGC has been on a steady rise in recent years. TikTok has specifically contributed to a boom this year, with many creators shifting their careers toward making UGC content, as it can offer them a steadier income.  

The timing has been opportune for a company like Insense. But Danil said he and his cofounders knew seven years ago that UGC marketing would become a promising industry. 

“[In 2016] we started working with photographers, videographers, and microinfluencers — these people told us, ‘We want to produce lots of content but we don’t want to post it organically in our feeds,'” he said. “So we started shifting our product towards that.” 

Insense now has 50 employees who are based remotely around the world. It’s secured itself as an official partner to both Meta and TikTok’s creator initiatives. And it’s working on features that will help brands easily repurpose UGC content for multiple platforms.

Read the company’s pitch deck that helped raise $2.5 million in its Pre-Series A round investments.