Obello, a design platform built for brands that need to create high-quality content at speed, has secured $8.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by Obvious Ventures, with participation from Baukunst, AVV, and Preview Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding to $9.5 million.
The new seed funding will support Obello’s next stage of growth. The company plans to enhance its image and video generation tools, deepen integrations with design and marketing platforms, and scale its customer footprint across mid-market and enterprise brands.
A story rooted in world-class brand building
Obello was founded by seasoned creators Ben Pham and Ollie Ralph, the duo behind the acclaimed brand agency Character, later acquired by Dentsu. Throughout their careers, they shaped iconic identities for Apple, DoorDash, Nike, Netflix, Instagram, and other global leaders.
Years spent inside the world’s most ambitious design rooms revealed a clear problem wherein brands today must produce content for countless platforms at a pace human teams alone can’t sustain. The result is overworked designers, bloated production pipelines, and off-brand assets that dilute identity.
Ben and Ollie saw an opportunity to return creative power to teams. Obello is their answer as the platform that preserves brand integrity while enabling the volume demanded by a digital-first world.
Building a smarter way to scale brand-perfect creative
Obello gives marketing and design teams a way to create large volumes of polished, on-brand content without slowing down. At its core is the Generative Layout Assistant Model (GLAM), a layout engine designed to intelligently resize and adapt designs with a single click.
Where traditional tools struggle to maintain hierarchy and visual balance, GLAM automatically adjusts spacing, typography, imagery, and structure, keeping every version consistent with brand guidelines. Teams upload assets, set design rules, and Obello handles the production work, including text, images, motion design, and automated workflows.
Obello is also modernising one of marketing’s most outdated tools: the HTML email builder. Instead of rigid templates, the platform generates fully on-brand, responsive emails tailored to each campaign. Early adopters include eBay, REI, ZenBusiness, OSEA, Ritual, Whisker, Fetch, Stasher, Thistle, Output, and Qonta, with agency expansion next on the roadmap.
With deep roots in world-class design and a platform built to solve real creative bottlenecks, Obello is positioning itself as the go-to system for brands aiming to move fast without losing identity.
“AI isn’t here to replace creative teams, it’s here to amplify their impact,” said Ollie Ralph, co-founder of Obello. “With Obello, designers and marketers can spend less time on repetitive production tasks and more time on the strategic, high-value work that moves brands forward.”
“Obello is tackling one of the biggest challenges brands face today, scaling across a fragmented marketing landscape without losing their identity,” said James Joaquin, Co-Founder of Obvious Ventures. “Ben and Ollie bring a rare mix of creative expertise and operational insight, and we believe their vision positions Obello to become the defining AI platform to deliver generative design for high-growth companies.”
“Brands today are expected to show up everywhere, all the time, across countless channels while staying true to strict brand guidelines,” said Ben Pham, co-founder and CEO of Obello. “This funding enables us to scale our platform so design and marketing teams can create and manage on-brand content at speed and scale, without sacrificing quality or creativity, ultimately helping brands grow faster and connect more meaningfully with their audiences.”
