Claybird

What do they actually do

Claybird is an AI‑native video ad agency. Clients share a brief, Claybird drafts scripts, generates footage with third‑party video models (e.g., Google Veo, Sora), assembles and edits the ads, and delivers drafts in an online workspace where a dedicated account lead manages feedback and revisions Claybird site YC company page YC LinkedIn post.

Near‑term, they’re pushing more of the planning, model selection, and multi‑variant production into software so marketers can move from brief to polished, channel‑specific ads with fewer manual steps, while still using approval gates and human QA YC company page Claybird site.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Mobile app growth / user‑acquisition manager: Needs dozens of short video variants and fast turnarounds to A/B test across placements; traditional agencies are too slow and costly to sustain continuous experiments.
• DTC / e‑commerce marketing manager: Must create many localized and retargeting cuts from each campaign (TikTok/Reels hooks, product closeups) without the budget or time for repeated studio shoots and manual edits.
• B2B/SaaS marketer running paid performance campaigns: Needs on‑brand explainer ads that convert, but lacks in‑house video production skills and finds agency iteration cycles too slow for message testing.
• Performance‑creative lead at an agency or media‑buy team: Juggles multiple clients and requires scalable creative pipelines and audience‑specific variants; current workflows bottleneck and have high marginal costs per new ad.
• Small in‑house social/video manager at an early‑stage brand: Has to publish frequent, platform‑native video with a tiny team and budget; needs a turnkey path from brief to draft without mastering complex tools.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Run ten white‑glove pilots via warm intros to mobile growth and DTC marketers; offer a discounted, time‑boxed engagement with guaranteed turnaround in exchange for a public case study and metrics.
• First 50: Convert pilots into 4–8 week packages and use those case studies in targeted outbound/LinkedIn to similar profiles. Hire 1–2 account/sales reps and push verticalized templates to make onboarding and delivery repeatable.
• First 100: Productize common engagements with transparent packages, a lightweight self‑serve onboarding path for small accounts, and a partner program for media buyers. Layer paid acquisition to growth marketers, continued outbound to mid‑market, and export/upload hooks so marginal delivery cost falls.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Global digital video ad spend is projected at about $215B in 2025, showing the overall demand for video creative that Claybird’s assets plug into Statista. US remains the single largest market for video ad spend IAB.

Bottom-up calculation:

The closest supplier‑side market is advertisement production/services at roughly $40–45B in 2024 Global Growth Insights. For Claybird’s sweet spot (short‑form paid social), short‑form video ad spend is ~US$115.8B in 2025; if 10–25% of that goes to creative/production, that implies ~$11.6–$29.0B of production dollars globally Statista Digiday/Celtra.

Assumptions:

• Only a fraction of media spend flows to production; we apply a 10–25% range for short‑form creative/production budgets based on industry norms and surveys.
• Claybird primarily targets short‑form, performance video (TikTok/Reels/paid social) rather than all video formats.
• Market‑report definitions vary; we use widely cited public sources for directional sizing rather than precise forecasts.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Omneky: AI platform for generating and optimizing image and video ads with performance insights and variant testing across channels—positioned for performance marketers Omneky.
• Pencil (Brandtech): GenAI ad creation platform aggregating top models (including AI video) to generate and scale ad creatives with enterprise workflows Pencil.
• QuickFrame by MNTN: Video creation and insights platform offering generative AI tools and a marketplace of vetted video pros to produce performance ads at scale QuickFrame.
• Celtra: Enterprise creative‑automation software to templatize and mass‑produce on‑brand ad variants (including video), with workflow and distribution integrations Celtra.
• Smartly.io: Creative automation and ad operations platform for paid social and retail media, used by brands and agencies to scale variant production and execution Smartly.io.