Building a billion-dollar AI brand from zero - scaling from no spend to upwards of £2M/month in paid media, powered by relentless creative output.

Granola AI
2025 - Present
Performance
Meta
Google
Tiktok
Youtube
UGC
Hi-Fi
Graphic Design
Motion
Static
Stills
The challenge

Granola AI, an AI-powered notepad built to transform how professionals capture meeting notes, came to us with an ambitious goal. New user growth at scale was the primary objective, starting from zero and aiming to aggressively scale paid media spend up to 6 figures and beyond, all while maintaining strong acquisition costs. 

The outcome

In just seven months, we helped scale Granola AI from £0 to over £700K in monthly ad spend across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. We implemented a full-funnel creative approach spanning static, UGC, and hi-fi assets, fuelling a broad-targeting ASC structure through mass creative testing. By experimenting with campaign types and optimising toward conversion goals at different stages of the funnel, we found the right balance between data quality and quantity to unlock the full potential of Meta's algorithm.

The outcome
£700k+


Spend scaled from 0 to £700k+/month in 7 months
drag

Granola Ai

From zero to £1M/month spend. We didn't just build the creative — we built the machine.

Testimonials
What our clients say
"We engaged Catalyst to drive UGC content production for Bolt Food across multiple markets, and they've done a great job coming up with culturally-relevant concepts and executing them to the highest standard."
"Catalyst have been a brilliant creative partner for us at Yonder. They genuinely feel like an extension of our team, easy to collaborate with, always bringing fresh ideas to the table, and never afraid to challenge our look and feel in the right ways. They've helped us level up with a more data-driven approach to creative, and unlocked content production at scale."
"Working with Catalyst has been a genuinely great experience for the Cleo team. As our partner for UGC assets and stills for paid ads, they've been patient, collaborative, and easy to work with throughout the whole process. We've had a couple of real grand slams come out of this partnership. Dan has been an amazing rep throughout, making the whole process smooth and stress-free."
"We've been working with Catalyst on our content creation and they've genuinely delivered. They're responsive, hold a high quality bar, and aren't afraid to reshoot when something isn't up to standard. The ads they've produced have transformed our TikTok and Meta campaign performance. Their approach is systematic across strategy, content, and data analysis, which is what actually drives the results. Highly recommended."
"Catalyst have been an excellent paid media partner for us at Dermalogica. Their ability to produce creative at scale has transformed our paid social performance and given Meta's algorithm the diversity it needs to work more efficiently. Beyond that, they've re-enabled us to expand into new channels like TikTok Shop with confidence, bringing the creative output and platform understanding needed to see results, we're excited about the future! Would highly recommend."
"The team were fantastic partners to work with across both creative and performance. Easy to collaborate with, proactive in bringing new ideas to the table and always focused on building a long-term partnership rather than just delivering work. Their responsiveness was genuinely best-in-class, which made a huge difference in a fast-moving environment like ours."
"Our performance on socials has stepped up to new levels since we started working with Catalyst. We've been able to keep moving with new creatives at a rate we couldn't do on our own, helped by the Catalyst team's brilliant responsiveness and turnaround times. Its been great to work with a regular team at Catalyst who have got to know our business, so our creative cycles are now feeling like a well oiled machine, thanks everyone."
"Catalyst combine sharp strategic thinking with a highly collaborative approach, consistently delivering insights, agility, and measurable results that helped us scale efficiently on new and existing channels. They are an excellent long-term growth partner."
"Dan was an absolute joy to work with - friendly, responsive, and always on top of everything. He made the whole process effortless and is exactly the kind of account manager you want on your side."
"Working with Catalyst has helped us unlock real scale with UGC video testing. They’ve streamlined a process that would otherwise require significant manual effort, allowing our team to move faster and focus on higher-impact work. Their creative instincts are strong, they stay on top of emerging trends, and their experience across winning brands gives us confidence in the recommendations and insights they bring."
Featured Work
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