Palo AI Launches Creator Tool with $3.8 Million Seed Funding, Led by Former MrBeast Content Strategist

Palo, an artificial intelligence-powered platform designed for short-video content creators, has officially launched following a $3.8 million seed funding round. The investment was led by Peak XV’s Surge (formerly Sequoia India), with additional participation from NFX and a syndicate of individual investors. The company was co-founded by Jay Neo, a former content lead for MrBeast; Shivam Kumar, a former engineer at Palantir; and creator Harry Jones. The platform aims to provide creators with AI-driven tools for content ideation, planning, and performance analytics. Jay Neo, who joined MrBeast at age 18, focused on viewer retention, meticulously analyzing metrics to understand engagement patterns. This experience, which included contributing to a video that garnered over 1.8 billion views across platforms, informed his approach to content formulation and analytics. After departing MrBeast in 2023, Neo co-founded "Creaky" branded channels, scaling them to over a billion views monthly, further solidifying his insights into scalable content creation and data utilization. These insights eventually led to the development of Palo. Palo’s application comprises three core functionalities: an AI-powered ideation and planning tool, comprehensive analytics, and a community feature. Upon integrating their social accounts, creators receive insights derived from an analysis of their short videos. Shivam Kumar, CTO at Palo, stated that the platform employs "a mix of models to extract a data tree that has insights into hooks, audience sentiment, interest topics, originality, and possible related search terms." The inference engine then aggregates these data points using various large language models to construct a personalized creator persona. The AI planner features a conversational interface, enabling creators to generate scripts or storyboards tailored to their content style. Currently, the platform is open to creators with a minimum of 100,000 followers, with initial pricing set at $250 per month, and higher tiers available for increased usage. During its test phase, Palo collaborated with approximately 40 creators, collectively reaching over 1 million users across their channels. Rajan Anandan, Managing Director at Peak XV, cited the co-founding team's experience in successful creative and technical environments as a key factor in the firm's investment decision, noting the demand for tools that streamline the creative process without compromising a creator's distinct voice. The launch occurs amidst a broader industry discussion regarding the role of AI in content creation and its potential impact on creators' livelihoods.