Aether raises $3.8m to inject AI into marketing presentations

FRIDAY, 22 AUGUST - Aether, a new AI-powered platform transforming how marketing managers build presentations and share institutional knowledge, today officially launches out of stealth.

Launched out of New+Improved, the venture studio from the people behind Tracksuit and Ideally, Aether has come out of the gates with a $3.8m seed round led by Icehouse Ventures. With additional backing from Brand Fund 2, Aether has already secured contracts with major enterprise customers across Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S.

Aether helps large organisations solve three pervasive issues: (1) institutional amnesia (where valuable data insights are lost or under-utilised), (2) wasted productivity on repetitive research production, and (3) outdated information embedded in static decks.

Already generating over $600,000 in annual recurring revenue, Aether is seeing rapid adoption among large-scale marketing teams where inefficiencies are most acute.

"They say measure twice, cut once, and this should also be true of marketing workflows. As it stands, most slide decks are recut every time a presentation happens, wasting valuable resources from internal teams," said Carsten Grueber, Co-founder and CEO of Aether.

"Aether transforms presentations from static documents into living, connected assets that are accurate, always up-to-date, and ready to share. Instead of marketers spending half a week building the monthly performance report, they can spend that same time doing the actual marketing itself," said Grueber, who is formerly Country Manager of TikTok New Zealand.

The company's software integrates live data directly into presentation and document workflows, eliminating the manual copy-paste grind that can consume up to 40% of marketers' time.

Once plugged into data sets, Aether creates customisable presentations using a business' branding within minutes and allows them to be effortlessly updated as the underlying data is refreshed. Aether is solving the presentation problem to change how marketing teams work together, similar to how Figma and Notion have radically increased collaboration and connectivity in design and project management.

Early Aether customers are using the platform for board packs, quarterly business reviews, campaign reports, agency briefs and knowledge management -  tasks that traditionally drain resources and delay decision-making.

"In minutes, Aether can take 150 marketing reports, in 12 different languages and distill it all down to the 10 slides that actually matter; assess and strengthen your latest idea, plan or brief against your marketing strategy; or create exec-ready presentations reporting last month's performance with key charts and commentary," said Grueber.

Further, Aether's ability to unlock forgotten, siloed institutional knowledge into a living asset where insights can be drawn instantly has been a massive value add for early customers, says Grueber.

The founding team brings deep expertise in scaling and commercialising SaaS businesses. Ursula von Keisenberg, Aether's co-founder, previously served as ANZ Managing Director at Timely and Emerging Markets Sales Lead at Xero Asia. 

CRO Daniel Alexander-Head rounds out the executive team after his time at Qualtrics as Regional Sales Manager APJ and Vision Critical as VP Sales. 

With more than half of its revenue already coming from Australia, Aether jumps out of the gates as a true trans-Tasman operation, with aspirations for global markets.

New+Improved Ventures' next company

Officially, Aether is the first company to be spun out of the recently minted New+Improved venture studio. However, it's familiar territory for the group behind the venture studio, who were responsible for kicking off brand tracking leader, Tracksuit, and insights platform, Ideally. 

"Aether represents a bigger opportunity than any of us have seen before," said New+Improved co-founder Simon Pound. "Now, with strong revenue, big global enterprise customers, and the backing of major investors, we're ready to scale. We believe Aether could be the next breakout SaaS success story from this region."

New & Improved Ventures reached the concept for Aether following interviews with 100s of marketing leaders and enterprise marketing businesses, where the redundant time on presentations, and poor activation of institutional knowledge emerged as a repeat pattern. 

The seed raise will be used to accelerate product development and expand the global team, currently spread across Australia and New Zealand. 

"This is the dream intersection of clear problem, scalable solution, and strong team," said Barnaby Marshall, Partner at Icehouse Ventures.

"Aether is solving a universal pain point, and the traction they've achieved with global enterprise customers before launch is remarkable."

About Aether

Aether is an AI-powered strategic marketing platform for enterprise that transforms presentations and institutional knowledge from static files into living, connected assets. By syncing directly with live data sources, Aethereliminates wasted hours spent copying, pasting, and updating slides and allows organisations to activate the millions of dollars they invest in research and strategy. Founded in 2025, the company is headquartered between Auckland and Melbourne.

Visit the Aether Website to learn more.