Shadowing Practice: Announcing Profound's Series C: $96M at $1B Valuation - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creating lesson...
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ProFounders raised $96 million at a $1 billion valuation to build a marketing platform for the age of AI.
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Our round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners alongside Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Avantik.
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Since we launched 18 months ago, we've had two core beliefs.
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First, every marketer on the planet will care deeply about how AI talks about their brand, products or services.
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Today, thousands of businesses, including 10% of the Fortune 500 and some of the biggest agencies on the planet,
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rely on our platform to understand and control how their brand shows up in AI answers.
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And we've gone on to become the number one leader in answer engine optimization on the G2 grid, which really showcases our obsession with building technology that our customers love.
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Our second belief is that every marketer will use AI agents to do great work faster.
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That's why today we're excited to announce Profound Agents.
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The world's top companies have already embedded Profound Agents throughout their marketing teams,
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from SEO to content to PR and even demand gen. And the results so far have been remarkable.
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We believe that this level of depth will birth a new kind of marketer.
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For instance, let's say a sentiment agent alerts us about a surge in negative chatter about our Salesforce integration.
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So engineering ships a fix.
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I orchestrate three highly autonomous, profound agents to directly influence AI's understanding of our updated integration.
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The first agent creates positive user generated content by finding users benefiting from the new integration improvements
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and drafting emails asking for authentic G2 reviews.
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Another identifies the top-sided articles causing sentiment to drop, finds the authors, and then drafts personalized outreach with suggested positive corrections for the new integration.
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And the final agent optimizes our own content by updating CMS articles to reflect the integration improvements
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and then pings the content team for review once staged.
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The best part?
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Profound agents work within your existing tech stack because we've built partnerships with companies that you use daily.
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Just like Gamma, which let agents take AEO data from Profound to create detailed reports and presentations to share with your team, saving you hours of time.
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And with Sanity, reducing manual work by having AI agents draft and stage content directly near CMS.
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So all you have to do is review and publish.
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And Vercel V0, for demand gen teams who are bottlenecked by developer resources, can now ship highly relevant landing pages based on profound topics,
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prompts and other data in just a matter of minutes.
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Hundreds of teams at companies such as MongoDB, Figma and US Bank are now using profound agents on a daily basis to do more.
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If you would like to try out one of the most popular Profound agents with no strings attached, simply comment the word agents below and I'll personally DM you access details.
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By working across your stack, we believe that Profound agents are able to 10x the productivity of the modern marketer.
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Engineers have cursor, lawyers have Harvey, and marketers have Profound.
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Today, we're also excited to announce Profound University, a series of certifications, courses,
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and cohort-based learning that will turn you into an expert in building, deploying, and managing agents.
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Through education, events, and a sophisticated partnership program, we're building a global community of marketers that want to redefine the way they work.
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Today's Series C announcement really is just the beginning.
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We want to say thank you to our customers and partners for allowing us to be here today.
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So, with all that said, let's get to work.

Context & Background

The video announcement reveals significant funding and innovative tools for marketers in the AI landscape. The speaker discusses the recent Series C funding of $96 million, positioning the company as a leader in optimizing how brands navigate the intricacies of AI interactions. As the focus shifts towards efficiency-driven technology, marketers are seen as evolving professionals adapting to the growing influence of AI in their operations. The speaker articulates a vision for the future where every marketer harnesses advanced AI agents to enhance productivity and effectiveness in their campaigns, leading to a new breed of marketing professionals.

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

  • AI agents are revolutionizing marketing: This phrase emphasizes the transformative role AI is playing in marketing.
  • Optimize our own content: Reflects the need for continuous improvement and adaptation of marketing materials.
  • Influence AI's understanding: Highlights the importance of managing how information is perceived by AI tools.
  • Reduce manual work: A goal for many industries, particularly in marketing, to increase efficiency.
  • Community of marketers: Suggests the collaborative nature of the marketing industry today, particularly with the integration of technology.

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

To effectively use the shadowing technique for this video transcript, follow these steps to enhance your IELTS speaking practice:

  1. Preparation: Before starting the shadow speech, watch the video to familiarize yourself with the context and the speaker's tone. Understanding the nuances of their delivery will significantly enhance your practice.
  2. Select Phrases: Choose the highlighted phrases from the transcript. Focus on these key expressions as they encapsulate essential marketing concepts and are practical for conversation.
  3. Listen Carefully: Play the video again, but this time, listen attentively. Pay close attention to the speaker’s pronunciation, intonation, and pacing. Consider using the shadowspeak approach by repeating phrases immediately after hearing them.
  4. Practice Aloud: Repeat the selected phrases and sentences out loud. Utilize the shadow speak method by mimicking the speaker’s tone and inflection to improve your fluency and confidence in speaking.
  5. Record Yourself: Record your practice session. Listening to your own output will help identify areas that need improvement, such as pronunciation or rhythm.
  6. Refine and Repeat: Focus on any challenging sections. Revisit them until you feel comfortable. This iterative process is vital for mastering complex speech patterns.

By incorporating this systematic approach, you're likely to improve your speaking skills significantly, enabling you to engage more effectively in discussions about trends in marketing and technology.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.