A seed round to replace the PR agency retainer.
Led by Icehouse Ventures with Brand Fund. Next stop: Australia and the US.
As featured in BusinessDesk · [Date] · 3 min read
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BusinessDesk reports on Drumbeat’s seed round: who backed it, what the money is for, and why an Auckland startup is betting that software can do what PR agencies have done on retainer.
Read the full article on BusinessDesk →Drumbeat has closed a NZ$2m seed round led by Icehouse Ventures, with support from Brand Fund. Two well-known marketing leaders are also backing the company: Adam Ferrier of Thinkerbell and Henry Innis of Mutinex.
Drumbeat is a PR and communications platform for high-growth companies. Instead of paying an agency retainer, in-house teams use one platform to run media relations, generate content, track campaigns and clip coverage.
Find out more →NZ$2m seed round, led by Icehouse Ventures with Brand Fund.
50+ customers across four markets since launching in March 2026.
Next: expansion into Australia and the US.
Drumbeat launched in March 2026. It now has more than 50 customers across New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US, including Andfoods, Re-Leased, Levno and Factor. Customers have won coverage as far afield as Singapore and Hong Kong. The team is eight people.
“Speaking to customers, and witnessing their results, validated what we expected. PR is more important than ever, but too much of the industry still operates the way it did in the 90s. Drumbeat has brought that into the modern era, and it’s meant breakneck growth - for them, and their customers.”
Jack McQuire, Partner, Icehouse Ventures
The funding will take Drumbeat into Australia and the US, and scale the platform.
“Drumbeat brings PR and comms strategy and media relationships in-house, giving high-growth companies the same kind of power in their hands that Tracksuit does for brand tracking and Ideally gives for market research.”
Simon Pound, Chair, Drumbeat and Partner, New+Improved Ventures
People now find brands through search, curated content and AI tools. That makes earned media more valuable than ever, because it shapes what large language models say about a company.
“As we grow into new markets, getting our story in front of the right media in each one used to mean managing multiple agency relationships. Drumbeat has let us do that from one platform, and we’ve landed coverage in APAC markets that are typically challenging to crack.”
Alex Devereux, CEO, Andfoods
Three operators who kept watching good companies stay invisible - and built the system they wished they’d had.
Left to right: Dr. Aaron Croft, Chief Product Officer; Fallon Savery, Chief Revenue Officer; Barney Chunn, CEO.
Storytelling is the oldest way humans have connected with each other. What’s changed is the technology.
Every company has stories it tells in sales calls and hiring interviews that the world never hears - the stories that make people choose to work with you. Traditional PR was built for a different media landscape: priced for enterprise budgets, structured around one-off announcements, and disconnected from the people who actually know the business.
We built Drumbeat so growing companies can find those stories, get them in front of the right audiences, and see what comes back - consistently, and without an agency retainer.
Our mission is for every company to use the power of its own story to drive genuine connection with its audience, and real growth as a result.
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