# Firsthand

> Firsthand is a New York based AI company building the Brand Agent Platform, a system that lets marketers and publishers deploy their own AI-powered brand representatives to engage consumers in real time across owned sites and paid media. Founded in 2023 by digital advertising veterans behind FreeWheel and AppNexus, Firsthand treats AI as a new communication medium rather than a tool for automating existing marketing. Its Lakebed data and knowledge rights management system lets brands retain ownership and control of their content and data while cooperating with AI. The company raised a $26M Series A in March 2025 led by Radical Ventures.

- **Founded:** 2023
- **Headquarters:** New York, United States
- **Founders:** Jonathan Heller (Co-CEO & Co-Founder), Michael Rubenstein (Co-CEO & Co-Founder), Wei Wei (Co-Founder)
- **Team size:** ~53 employees (with plans stated to roughly double by end of 2025)
- **Products:** Brand Agent Platform, Lakebed
- **Notable:** Raised $26M Series A in March 2025 led by Radical Ventures., Founded by the teams behind FreeWheel (acquired by Comcast) and AppNexus (acquired by AT&T)., Emerged from stealth in early 2024 to build an AI agent platform for brands and publishers.

## Products & services

- **Brand Agent Platform** — AI-powered brand representatives that engage consumers in moments of curiosity or intent, delivering real-time, adaptive experiences across owned properties and paid media placements. Built for marketers (brand storytelling, lead generation, customer insights) and publishers (new revenue streams, subscriber conversion, reader engagement).
- **Lakebed** — An AI-era data and knowledge rights management system that lets marketers and publishers retain ownership and control of their content and intellectual property while enabling safe AI cooperation across multiple parties' data.

## Achievements

- Raised $26M Series A in March 2025 led by Radical Ventures.
- Founded by the teams behind FreeWheel (acquired by Comcast) and AppNexus (acquired by AT&T).
- Emerged from stealth in early 2024 to build an AI agent platform for brands and publishers.
- Built Lakebed, a dedicated data and knowledge rights management system for the AI era.
- Backed by notable adtech angels including David Rosenblatt, Brian O'Kelley, and Bob Lord.

## Latest updates

- **2025-03** — Closed $26M Series A led by Radical Ventures to scale the Brand Agent Platform for marketers and publishers.
- **2024-02** — Emerged from stealth to build the AI agent platform for brands and publishers.

## Links

- Website: https://firsthand.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/firsthand-labs
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/firsthandlabs

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/firsthand
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-15