Kiwi comms startup Drumbeat bags NZ$2M to help founders tell their stories

The round for Drumbeat was led by Icehouse Ventures, with support from Brand Fund. Prominent Australian marketers Adam Ferrier from Thinkerbell and Mutinex’s Henry Innis are also backers.

The cash will help scale the platform’s proprietary “awareness-building system”, which includes media relations management, content generation, campaign tracking and media clipping tools, alongside expanding in Australia and the United States.

Drumbeat launched in March 2026 and now has more than 50 customers in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and US, serviced by a team of eight. The martech startup was developed at venture studio New+Improved Ventures, creators of the brand tracking platform Tracksuit and market research platform Ideally.

Its founders are Barney Chunn, cofounder of CONQA, Fallon Savery, formerly SVP Revenue at Timely, and Aaron Croft, the ex-head of product at Hectre.

Their thesis is that brand awareness comes from consistency, not isolated PR and one-off announcements.

Chunn, the CEO, said the way brands earn attention has fundamentally changed, with AI shaping how people discover and evaluate companies.

“Storytelling is the oldest way humans have connected with each other – what’s changed is the technology,” he said .

“We’re now in an era where companies can tell their stories with a level of scale that was not possible before. 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.”

Drumbeat chair and New+Improved Ventures partner Simon Pound said the martech platform puts the same kind of power in the hands of high-growth companies that Tracksuit does for brand tracking.

“Every company has great stories of why they exist, what they’re doing and where they’re going. The companies you know are the ones that are good at storytelling, and now we’re working to make this an advantage any company can have,” he said.

“Previously this skill set has resided in companies with PR agencies and people retained to help make the stories happen. Drumbeat opens up the strategic use of PR to all businesses.

Icehouse Ventures partner Jack McQuire said PR is more important than ever, but too much of the industry still operates the way it did in the 90s.

“The highest conviction investments we make are those driven by their teams. We have seen cofounders Barney, Fallon and Aaron grow and execute over a decade and know they have the experience to build for a real change in the market,” he said.