Kliken

There are more than thirty-three million small-medium businesses in the U.S. And they all face the same problem: finding customers online.

The thing is, most of these businesses don’t have the resources or capital to afford an outside marketing agency. And they don’t have the time to set up advertising campaigns themselves. Where can they turn?

The answer is Kliken. Kliken is an Artificial Intelligence-powered digital-marketing platform for small businesses. It enables businesses to rapidly grow by providing owners with a suite of tools to create, track, and optimize their own paid ad campaigns easily and affordably.

Over the past two years, Kliken has generated more than $220 million in sales for its clients. And those who use its platform have experienced five-times returns on advertising spending.

What makes this company so special? Besides using AI to provide customers with the service of a digital-marketing agency at a fraction of the cost, Kliken has partnerships with leading e-commerce platforms. These include Wix, Weekly, Woo, and Squarespace. This enables customers to start building an effective ad campaign right after publishing their website.

Additionally, Kliken is backed by venture-capital firms Stage 1 Ventures and Florida Founders.

Kliken is offered through a mobile app or website. After completing their website using one of the company’s partner platforms, business owners work with Kliken to build relevant, effective strategies to drive traffic to their site. Kliken can work for businesses in sectors ranging from retail to health and fitness to legal. Here’s how it works:

First, clients define their business objectives. Then, they select their target audience, store category, and any products they want to advertise. From there, Kliken uses an AI-powered engine to design graphics and write compelling copy to sell the products. It then manages the campaign across the Internet, Google Search, Meta, Facebook Marketplace, YouTube, and more.

Throughout the campaign, Kliken employs advanced algorithms and machine-learning technology to monitor and adjust for maximum returns. It also delivers clients intuitive reports each step of the way.

The ads Kliken creates are part of its secret weapon. That’s because these ads are a privacy-centric alternative to Google or Facebook Ads. Kliken has built its advertising platform in-house and can offer the same services as the big guys for a lower cost. Additionally, ads can be approved and up and running quicker than with Google or Facebook. It can take up to ten days for an ad to be approved by Google or Facebook. With Kliken, it only takes twenty-four hours.

Kliken’s main revenue comes from two sources: monthly fees and campaign-management fees.

Automation fees run from twenty dollars to $100 a month, and campaign-management fees range from five percent to forty percent of each campaign.

Notably, Kliken achieves forty percent margins on its ads. For every $100 spent on its platform, the company makes forty dollars.

This company is targeting a huge opportunity. Of the thirty-three million small businesses in the U.S., only ten percent advertise online. This creates a market worth more than $540 million. Kliken’s revenue has increased by 371% since 2019. And in 2022, the company reached nearly ten million dollars in annual-recurring revenue.

Team Background

Ricardo Lasa - Co-Founder & CEO

Ricardo is a two-time founder with extensive experience in the software industry.

He began his career as a systems analyst with Verizon before becoming CEO of Rivergy, a computer-systems design company.

From there, he was CEO and Chairman of Web Piston, a website-management platform for small businesses. He left this company to start Kliken in 2010.

Ricardo earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Management-Information Systems, a Master’s Degree in Information Systems, and an MBA from the University of South Florida. He also studied executive education at Harvard Business School.

Don Berndt - Co-Founder & Chief Scientist

Don was a faculty member at the University of South Florida for nearly thirty years and co-founded Medegy Health Systems, a company delivering data mining and analytics to the healthcare sector.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Rhode Island, a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Stony Brook University, and a Ph.D. in Management-Information Systems from NYU.

Christopher Lord - Chief Technology Officer

Chris has decades of experience in software development and IT management.

Most recently, he was a senior e-commerce developer with Web Piston, the website-management platform started by Ricardo Lasa. Before that, he held the same role with Rivergy, Ricardo’s computer-systems design company.

Chris studied Business at Clearwater Christian College and Web Programming at St. Petersburg College.

Co-Investors