Tech start-up launched by trio of marketing agency directors

Three senior figureheads from strategic marketing agency HOME have reunited to launch a new machine learning and AI brand in Leeds.

Third Foundation is the brainchild of HOME’s ex-tech director Phillip Midwinter, who has spent 15 years working with technology to drive the strategic use of data within business.

Determined to increase the level of real-time information available to clients, he set out to establish a next generation organisation that could liberate organisations previously held back by a lack of true data insight.

Third Foundation aims to collect more detailed data and streamline disorderly sources into a single secure space; implement cutting-edge machine learning to recognise performance patterns and generate predictions that ease uncertainty and to harness artificial intelligence to automate and improve decision making.

Midwinter is joined by HOME agency’s former managing director (digital) Michael Ward, who takes on the role of CEO, and director of media performance and adtech Paul Roberts, who moves from the position of HOME’s head of media technology.

Already, Third Foundation has secured Google Cloud partner status, making it the region’s only machine learning firm on the program and adding further weight to the trio’s 50 years of combined experience.

Three other colleagues have also joined the team, based at The Leeming Building in the centre of Leeds.

Midwinter said: “We want to quickly uncover what clients don’t know, such as patterns in missed opportunities or lost revenue. And we can do this thanks to the rapid deployment of our machine learning algorithms which extract, build and interrogate data sets swiftly and compliantly.

“We’ll be able to help any large or fast-growth organisation that holds lots of information, but brands with a keen eye on marketing performance will specifically benefit from a new level of understanding from properly-engineered data.”

Ward added: “We’ve carefully assembled our team so that we’re not just providing clients with future tech to spearhead business growth – we’re also combining what I genuinely think are some of the smartest digital marketing minds in the North, to give brands the time and space they need to fix business problems with a whole new world of information.”