Presto Ventures’ PortCo KLIPY Raises USD 1.2M to Transform GIF Engagement Into Scalable Ad Revenue

• KLIPY raised USD 1.2M Seed round to scale its monetization-first GIF and content API
• It solves the major monetization gap in the GIF industry by embedding non-intrusive, contextual ads
• The investment will accelerate KLIPY’s global expansion through onboarding more apps, bundling GIFs and clips, and developing more AI tools

This April, KLIPY (ex-Kikliko)—a portfolio startup of the famous Czech VC fund Presto Ventures (invested in Elin.ai, among others)—raised a Seed round of USD 1.2M. The investors included the well-known British investment firm Sturgeon Capital (invested in Finmap, among others), Caucasus Ventures, and Axel Georgian Business Angel Network, alongside angel investors 2x NBA Champion, Zaza Pachulia, Gfycat‘s co-founder Dan McEleney, and Isaac Applebaum of MizMaa Ventures.

Seasoned Founders and Straightforward Naming

Kikliko was founded by vastly experienced entrepreneurs Givi Beridze (CEO) and Waska Chaduneli (CTO)—a duo known for repeatedly building innovative and sustainable tech-driven businesses. Givi Beridze, named to the Forbes 30 Under 30, brings deep expertise in product development, growth strategy, and startup scaling. In addition to being a mentor at Techstars and Founder Institute, he advises several academic institutions, including San Diego State University, helping bridge the gap between academia and entrepreneurship.

Waska Chaduneli complements the team with his strong technical background and a proven track record in developing scalable, high-performance software solutions. His leadership in tech architecture and execution has consistently resulted in platforms that deliver value to both users and business stakeholders.

Together, they have co-founded multiple ventures, always focused on cost-effective innovation and long-term impact. What began as a side project called Kikliko—a playful name derived from a variation of French toast—evolved into a more focused vision around short-form media. Reflecting this shift, the startup was rebranded as KLIPY, aligning with its mission to deliver engaging clips from movies, TV shows, and videos, tailored for modern content consumption.

The Overlooked and Undermonetized GIF Industry

Presto Ventures backed the KLIPY team early on, betting on their bold vision to disrupt the GIF industry – an ecosystem with massive usage but zero revenue for social platforms and messaging apps.

‘No one had cracked this challenge, until now. It’s great to see their game-changing, win-win solution gaining strong traction in the market,’ Presto Ventures’ partner Vojta Roček says.

Despite billions of users engaging with animated content daily, major players like GIPHY, Tenor, and Gfycat have failed to generate sustainable revenue. Though these platforms attracted massive user bases and secured hundreds of millions in funding, their inefficient technologies and high operational costs—particularly from servers and content teams—led to unsustainable burn rates. Ultimately, GIPHY was sold twice (first to Meta, then to Shutterstock), Gfycat was shut down, and Tenor remains without a clear monetization strategy.

‘It’s hard to say for sure why our predecessors failed to monetize. They built impressive companies that reached massive scale. Timing and shifting industry priorities played a big role. Monetization wasn’t top of mind at the time, and after their acquisitions, focus naturally shifted,’ Mr Beridze comments.

‘There has been limited innovation in the space since Tenor and GIPHY were acquired, but the needs of platforms and end users have evolved. This has only been accelerated by the developments in generative AI. We are excited to be backing Givi, Waska, and the KLIPY team. Sturgeon Capital invested in KLIPY because we believe they are the right team at the right time to be solving the monetisation problem for platforms,’ Sturgeon Capital’s partner Robin Butler states.

Failed Attempts of Monetizing Short Forms

The highlighted patterns highlight a broader issue in the digital content ecosystem: platforms distributing GIFs, stickers, and short-form media see tens of billions of daily impressions, yet they cannot monetize them directly. Meanwhile, widely used apps—spanning messaging, social networking, dating, and media—struggle with monetization, resorting to intrusive banner ads that hurt user experience and reduce engagement and Net Promoter Scores (NPS).

At the same time, the programmatic advertising market continues to grow, now comprising 60% of a USD 1T annual spend. However, it’s under pressure due to the deprecation of third-party cookies and restrictions on IP address tracking, pushing advertisers to find new, privacy-compliant ways to deliver personalized content.

‘As time goes by, cookies are disappearing, IP addresses are becoming limited, and almost every user clicks the “Ask app not to track” button while using various apps. Nobody wants to enable apps to sell their data. Prioritizing user privacy, we instead observe behavioral signals like content trends, vibe patterns, and in-app interactions that allow us to deliver highly relevant targeting for brands without relying on invasive tracking,’ Mr Beridze explains.

‘With traditional ad inventories becoming outdated and ad-blindness impacting CTRs, KLIPY’s unique model offers a fresh approach. Their innovative ad inventory placed between GIFs, stickers, and other products within the world’s largest apps, combined with diverse targeting opportunities, not only captures attention but also drives meaningful engagement,’ Admixer’s VP Yaroslav Kholod adds.

This evolving landscape underscores the urgent need for innovative, user-friendly monetization models that align with modern privacy standards. KLIPY founders have identified this gap and built a platform that’s well-positioned to fill it—bridging the worlds of high-engagement content and scalable, programmatic advertising solutions without compromising user experience.

‘Seeing the demand, we developed an API and completed our first integrations. Throughout that process, we listened closely to our customers, the platforms integrating our APIs. Their primary concern was not only user engagement, but also monetizing each interaction. In response, we built our own libraries of stickers, GIFs, and later AI-generated content, adding a crucial feature: built-in monetization that we would share with the platforms,’ Mr Beridze tells ITKeyMedia.

API to Fill the Monetization Gap with Efficiency

Essentially, what KLIPY brings to the table is the long-missing monetization engine for GIFs, stickers, memes, clips, and AI-generated media. Its API-first platform allows messaging, dating, keyboard, and media apps to integrate high-quality, culturally relevant animated content and generate revenue from day one.

The platform offers the largest localized animated content library—with over 15 million assets and growing—ensuring that users see content that resonates with their culture and context. By embedding non-intrusive, contextual ads between pieces of content, KLIPY enables direct and programmatic monetization without compromising user experience. This privacy-first approach requires no cookies or intrusive tracking, aligning with evolving global data standards.

The platform’s ultra-efficient infrastructure supports over 4 billion content and ad requests monthly, with server costs kept under USD 1.5K, proving its operational sustainability. Apps integrating KLIPY also gain access to its growing ad network partnerships, including InMobi, PubMatic, Verve, and LoopMe, with more premium integrations on the way.

Speaking of the cost efficiency of server maintenance, the team doesn’t share specific details about its infrastructure. The founders only hint that growing a startup from CEE forces one to be incredibly resource-efficient from day one, and this mindset helps build a scalable and cost-effective system.

Already embedded in 11+ platforms like Slack, Canva, Figma, Miro, and others, KLIPY is becoming the go-to monetization solution for developers seeking to enhance engagement and unlock new revenue streams—all without sacrificing user trust or experience.

What Else Makes the New Solution Stand Out

‘KLIPY is a game-changer in today’s market. They are doing what wasn’t feasible during our time – maintaining a massive GIF library at a super low server cost while integrating scalable monetization and sharing the revenue with apps.’ Gfycat’s co-founder and CEO Dan McEleney points out.

So, would it be correct to put it in Simple English that KLIPY is basically Giphy with monetization?

‘Kind of, yes—but with significant differences. For example, server cost optimization, the way we display ads and manage scalability, content localization, etc. Let’s break each of these down:

• Localization: We take it seriously. When someone opens a GIF feature from India, they should see trending content in their language, relevant to what’s popular in India. Same for users in the Czech Republic and elsewhere. Testing this approach in a few countries, we saw a 5x increase in user engagement. At the end of the day, it translates into significant revenue.
• Monetization: Let’s be honest – this is new and innovative, which is not always a good thing. The market needs time to educate and adapt, which usually means the need for a big sales team to generate enough demand for billions of daily impressions. We decided to focus on programmatic advertising, which allows us to tap into a significant portion of global marketing spend and meet demand instantly – without requiring a large salesforce.

So to summarize: While we may look similar to GIPHY or Tenor, we differ significantly when it comes to AI application, content localization, and—most importantly—revenue generation,’ Mr Beridze answers.

The Investment and Further Expansion

‘I invested in KLIPY because I saw its potential to transform the entertainment and advertising industries. Givi and Waska’s approach to building technology has made KLIPY incredibly efficient, ultimately driving significant revenue for platforms integrating their API,’ angel investor Zaza Pachulia says.

The new investment is meant to fuel KLIPY’s global expansion with a focus on onboarding new apps. More specifically, KLIPY’s core focus after fundraising is to onboard as many apps as possible and offer them the full suite of features – GIFs, Clips, Stickers, Memes, and AI tools – all bundled with monetization, so they can generate revenue while we build a sustainable business.

As the industry evolves, KLIPY is ready to support the world’s largest apps with top-quality service.

An API like KLIPY’s for monetizing GIFs and other short-form animated content is essential for transforming a highly engaging yet historically unmonetized format into a scalable revenue stream. As digital platforms seek privacy-first, user-friendly alternatives to intrusive ads, KLIPY’s solution promises a seamless way to balance engagement with profitability. By enabling real-time, culturally relevant content delivery paired with non-intrusive ads, KLIPY empowers apps to drive growth, at the same time enhancing user experience.