It’s only a handful of days away from the Glastonbury of ad tech, namely ATS London. Our own event, MadTechMoney, is running on the same day. We have a jam-packed agenda. Be sure to get your ticket, as everyone of note will be there. We’ll talk about the industry’s future from a practitioner’s point of view and a money perspective. The excitement is palpable.
One panel FPC is looking forward to is: Tokenomics - The Future of AI Infrastructure. The discussion will focus on how AI is upending the infrastructure and work processes that underpin the industry overall. Specifically, it will cover why orgs must quickly address cost, sovereignty, and utility.
Our own Steve McCartney, CEO of portco Carpio, will be on that panel, discussing the intricacies of open-weight models versus frontier LLMs. An opportune time, then, to speak about our latest incubation (the sixth we are working on internally).
Steve and the Carpio team have been building out a new AI infrastructure company (currently in beta) over the past 12 months to address major infrastructure issues around enterprise AI use in the digital marketing space. This is a verticalised solution aimed at brands, agencies, publishers, ad tech, and martech - specifically those with a non-US focus. We already have 4 incubations building on top of the new solution. We are definitely eating our own dog food at FPC.
The use case is built around three key pillars:
Cost: The cost of using frontier LLMs is spiralling. And with a duopoly looking to dominate that market, price rises are inevitable. Many organisations are using the largest models from OpenAI and Claude to do menial, low-level tasks - when there is absolutely no need. This is now a huge cost issue for companies relying on AI for back-office functions. For agencies and brands already operating on thin margins, that’s not a simple ”tokenomics” problem; it’s real money coming straight off the bottom line.
Sovereignty: This is a huge issue for companies in our space. Many brands have baked AI use into agency contracts. Many are rightfully fearful about IP and client data sovereignty. Even with the best contractual guarantees, jurisdiction creates exposure you can’t fully address. This is a big issue for European-based entities, and data sovereignty is top of mind for everyone. You need to be comfortable with exactly where the infrastructure and your sensitive data sit.
Utility: This seems obvious now. But why waste so much money doing utility stuff on expensive frontier models? But what open-weight models do you use? You need to test, score and outline their specific function. Our new solution does all of that and keeps information on all models up to date. That’s why we are verticalised; we focus on use cases within digital marketing. Our objective is to give our customers technical autonomy. We don’t want to compete with your model-building strategy. You should own and run that in an environment where your proprietary or client data doesn’t train a frontier model - or where your IP is used to build a competing product (cc Figma).
The service has 5 core (modular) parts (see below). Simply, pick and choose the parts you need.
Hardware: Owned GPU/CPU capacity in the UK & EU - not to out-build hyperscalers on raw compute, but to guarantee exactly where your data sits and who can access it.
Model serving: Turns GPU hours into tokens and outputs.
Gateway: Routes, bills, controls, and secures requests
Individual services: One job per API tuned for vertical-specific use cases.
Full applications: Memory, content studio, compliance, and more built by you, us, or 3rd-parties on top of this stack.
This is the uber-geeky heart of AI in digital marketing. We are now looking for beta partners to work with us: those who want to cut costs, secure data sovereignty, and access tried-and-tested, cutting-edge models. We’re particularly keen to talk to mid-sized agencies and ad tech companies looking to offer this - for internal use or white-labelled to their own clients.
We have put together a visual overview of the solution:
If that is your organisation, email contact@firstpartycapital.com for more information. Steve and the team will be at ATS London on September 15 and will be happy to field questions directly about our new incubation. See you there.