Heatseeker AI is increasing its pre-seed funding round cap to $1.3 million to continue developing its product that helps companies test and learn at scale.

Heatseeker AI blends artificial intelligence and creative marketing to help companies develop stronger go-to-market strategies based on data-backed insights and real online engagement. Its co-founders, Kate O’Keeffe and Fiona Triaca, raised the round’s cap from $500,000 after heightened investor interest in the U.S. and Australia for their “growth-hacking-as-a-service” solution.

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“Imagine if 10 out of 10 startups were successful instead of 1 out of 10,” says Kate O’Keeffe, co-founder and CEO of Heatseeker AI. “We think that’s possible. Often, innovation failures happen because founders do not have the time or funds to get enough pivots in to find product market fit. Heatseeker wants to give high-growth companies the tools to make scrappy, cheeky decisions by testing them quickly in market.”

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Startups are using Heatseeker to find new ways to explain their product, find new customer segments, even to choose the next feature they should build into their product.

To date, Heatseeker has raised $420,000 from angel investors in the U.S. as well as the Australia-based VC Euphemia. This round’s funds will be invested in recruitment as well as developing the alpha release. Heatseeker has opted for an unpriced round utilizing a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE), with a valuation cap of $9 million.  

“We want to help founders learn by doing, not just guessing,” says Fiona Triaca, co-founder and COO. “Heatseeker makes this easy, automated, and iterative, and we’re excited to partner with strategic investors to make it happen.”

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The idea for Heatseeker developed from O’Keeffe’s experience building a digital insurance company in 2022. O’Keeffe and her colleagues used growth hacking techniques to pinpoint the right messaging for different startup ideas by manually creating multiple digital campaigns and launching them to see which received the most engagement. “When we called the product ‘micro-insurance’ no one clicked, when we called it ‘bite sized insurance’ it outperformed every benchmark. Same product, but the name hit users really differently. If I’d called it micro insurance we would have tanked!” 

Australia is turning into a regional tech hub with tech unicorns like Canva, Atlassian, and Airwallex defying the global odds. This is attracting investors to their shores, and strengthening the Australian tech ecosystem. With this accelerating growth in place, venture-backed SaaS platform, Heatseeker AI, has announced the imminent closure of its funding round, aiming to secure $1.3 million in total. Initially setting out with a modest goal of $500,000, Heatseeker has acquired solid interest and support, prompting an expansion of its ambitions.