Award-winning SA startup secures investment to build marketing automation tools for lean marketing teams
The investment comes as the global marketing technology market surges from $557.94 billion in 2025 toward a projected $2.86 trillion by 2034 – a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20%. But the real story isn't market size: it's the fundamental restructuring of how marketing gets done. Today, 85% of global marketing teams consist of 10 or fewer people, with nearly two-thirds operating as squads of just one to five. These micro-teams face stagnant budgets – plateaued at roughly 7.7% of company revenue – while output demands continue to climb, creating what industry analysts call a critical "time deficit."
Adbot has positioned itself as the solution to this capacity crisis, building automation tools specifically for marketers who need to deliver enterprise-level campaigns without enterprise-level resources.
"AI isn't just changing what marketers create – it's transforming how marketing work gets done," says Michelle Geere, CEO and founder of Adbot. "Companies are cutting headcount but not expectations. That's both a crisis and an opportunity."
The scale of the opportunity is clear: 83% of marketers report AI has improved productivity, saving over 5 hours weekly, while 92% have consolidated to 20 or fewer tools. Technology is no longer a nice-to-have, it's survival infrastructure for teams trying to "buy back" time.
This is Adbot's obsession. The company serves over 2,000 clients across South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Nigeria and the UK, currently managing Google Ad campaigns for businesses facing the exact constraint driving this shift: stagnant budgets, smaller teams, unchanged expectations.
The results speak for themselves. Telecommunications provider Herotel is achieving a 24% click-through rate with Adbot – delivering 8 times more traffic for the same ad spend as competitors. Meanwhile, sports retailer Racketlon is generating R15 in revenue for every R1 spent on advertising, a 1:15 return on ad spend that would be impossible without intelligent automation handling optimization at scale.
"We're witnessing the decoupling of output from headcount," Geere explains. "In 2025, a team of three armed with the right AI stack outpaces a legacy team of ten. Success is now measured by time saved, not people hired."
Traditional agency models can't adapt to fulfill the needs of this growing segment. Agencies are structured around specialist teams and overhead costs that demand R50,000+ monthly retainers. The math doesn't work for a marketer managing R100,000 in ad spend, and having to justify spending half that amount on agency fees. They need tools that multiply their capacity.
The investment from Montegray Capital will enable Adbot to make a critical strategic shift: expanding from ad tech – focused purely on media placement – to a comprehensive martech platform that covers the full agency workflow. This includes developing what Geere describes as "autonomous workflows" that start from strategy to creative briefing to media placement, optimisation and reporting with minimal human oversight.
"We've proven we can manage the media buying piece brilliantly," Geere explains. "But our clients are asking for more. What about the brief? What about the creative? What about the strategy? They need the entire workflow, not just one piece of it. This investment allows us to build the complete solution."
While automation tools were projected to capture over one-third of the global MarTech market in 2025, adoption remains stubbornly low. McKinsey research reveals a paradox that nearly eight out of ten companies report using generative AI, yet a similar proportion report no meaningful bottom-line impact. The problem isn't the technology – it's that most tools still demand too much input and customization from already overwhelmed users.
"I'm building this because I've lived this problem," says Geere. "I've seen how expensive and inaccessible digital marketing is for my business. So we are not adding AI features or wrappers to justify a price increase – we're reimagining the entire agency workflow so three people can do what previously took ten."
For Jordaan, the investment reflects a conviction he's been vocal about: AI's ability to enhance marketing productivity with radically smaller teams. Through Montegray Capital, he has consistently backed technology-driven solutions to market inefficiencies, prioritising companies that solve specific problems over those chasing scale. "Size comes with time," he noted at a previous Daily Maverick event. "It's more important to focus on solving a specific problem, because once that is achieved, growth comes naturally."
Geere and her team are now focused on productising autonomy rather than simply automation – building systems that make strategic decisions, not just execute tasks. It's a vision that, if successfully executed, could redefine what's possible for marketing teams operating with minimal resources but maximum ambition.
Businesses currently operating with lean marketing teams looking to multiply their capacity without expanding headcount can contact Michelle to be part of their Beta roll-out on mich@mydabot.co.za. DM