Founder of the Week: Thomas Ives

• In 2021, Thomas Ives co-founded RAAS LAB, the first AI adtech platform capable of activating both creative messaging and ad placement at the level of each individual impression.
• Ives has secured partnerships with global brands such as Estée Lauder, B&Q, Lego and UFC, demonstrating the platform’s ability to deliver measurable outcomes for tier-one clients.
• Showing extraordinary personal commitment in the early years, Ives sold his car and home to fund RAAS LAB’s early development and bring its vision of ‘hyper-relevance’ in digital advertising to life.
• He is now leading the company through an ambitious growth phase, with a £3 million revenue target for 2025 and plans to expand into the US market in 2026.

 

 

Tell Us About Yourself and RAAS Lab

 

I’m a digital marketer with over a decade of experience across supply and agency-side roles, specialising in transforming digital signals and premium media into measurable performance throughout the customer journey.

In 2021, I co-founded RAAS LAB, an AI-based adtech platform that is pioneering ‘hyper-relevance’ in digital advertising. We are the first solution in the market to activate both creative messaging and ad placement at the level of each individual impression, delivering unprecedented precision and outcomes. The power of our unique technology has placed us as a trusted partner to iconic global brands such as Estée Lauder, B&Q, Lego, UFC, and more.

 

What Inspired You To Start RAAS Lab? What Problem Were You Trying To Solve?

 

Social platforms were winning because they had data, scale, and full control of their own measurement. But they weren’t necessarily better; they just had the tech. Meanwhile, premium publishers had incredible content and engaged audiences, yet were being left behind, unable to deliver the same results.

We realised the issue wasn’t the media, it was the targeting. The industry was stuck relying on outdated audience segments and cookie-based tactics; there was no way to match creative to the content on the page. That’s what inspired us: the idea that if we could make ads an extension of great editorial, performance would follow.

Determined to change this, I made the decision to sell my car and home to fully invest in bringing this vision to life. That vision became RAAS LAB.

We built an AI-powered platform from the ground up, one that understands media context and dynamically delivers hyper-personalised creatives that signal with users at their exact moment of inspiration. By aligning the message with the context, we’ve created a capability no other platform offers: advertising that truly connects, performs, and respects the premium media environment in which it appears.

 

 

What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far? How Did You Overcome It?

 

One of the biggest challenges was getting the industry to believe that display could be more than just an awareness tool and that it could genuinely drive measurable outcomes. The status quo was deeply entrenched, with media teams and marketers treating display as the nice-to-have wallpaper around the serious stuff like search or social. Overcoming this required us not only to innovate with technology but to prove our case again and again, client by client, with real data.

We leaned heavily into controlled experiments, showing how contextual relevance directly impacted click-through rates, conversions, and even brand uplift. That evidence started to shift perceptions. But more than anything, it took persistence, challenging norms, pushing for access to performance data, and being willing to have hard conversations with stakeholders who didn’t yet see what we could see.

 

Can You Describe A Pivotal Moment That Shaped the Direction of RAAS Lab?

 

It was when we found the connection between relevance and outcomes.

We’d always believed relevance mattered, but seeing a direct and repeated correlation between aligning creative to webpage context and delivering stronger performance was the eureka moment. It wasn’t subtle; the data was stark. We were getting uplifts that weren’t just statistically significant, but game-changing. For the first time, we had tangible proof that display advertising could do more than just “get seen”, it could drive real, attributable results.

That insight fundamentally shaped our direction. From that point on, our mission became about building a system that could scale this, to bring contextual intelligence to display and creative in a way that had never been done before.

 

How Do You Define Success In Business?

 

For Your Business: Success for us is about creating a new standard, not just doing things better, but doing them differently. It’s about replacing outdated practices with smarter, more effective ways of working. We want to shift the foundations of how digital marketing is done, away from arbitrary placements and toward real contextual alignment that drives outcomes. If we can change the way an entire industry operates, we’ve succeeded.

As A Founder: For me, success is about people and change. It’s seeing people believe in something that once seemed impossible: colleagues, clients, even competitors, and knowing you helped spark that shift. It’s watching someone on your team grow into a new version of themselves because the business needed them to. It’s creating momentum and meaning that outlasts you.

 

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Thinking About Launching Their Own Startup?

 

Solve a problem you genuinely care about, because there will be times when that’s the only thing that keeps you going.

Don’t aim to build something slightly better – aim to build something different. If you’re just adding a feature to the status quo, you’ll burn out or get outpaced. If you’re challenging how an industry works, you’ll be on the offensive, and that energy is contagious.

Build for proof, not praise. The people who “don’t get it” aren’t your audience yet – show them, don’t convince them.

And lastly, surround yourself with smart people who’ll tell you when you’re wrong, not just when you’re winning.

 

What’s Next for RAAS Lab?

 

We have some exciting developments ahead that we’re thrilled about. With a revenue target of £3 million for 2025, we’re focused on establishing RAAS LAB as a leading adtech partner for tier one brands and agencies across the UK. To help accelerate our national growth and scale our operations, we’re currently preparing for our first funding round.

Looking further ahead, one of our most ambitious moves is launching RAAS LAB in the US in 2026, a major step that will elevate our platform to the next level.

Want to be featured as TechRound’s Founder of the Week? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved here.

 

Founder’s Five with Thomas Ives

 

We wanted to find out more about the man behind RAAS Lab – here’s the exclusive Founder’s Five with Thomas Ives.

 

1. Favourite business tool?

 

OpenAI.

 

2. One Lesson you’ve learned the hard way?

 

Delegating too late costs more than hiring too early. As a founder, you feel like you have to own everything. But I learned the hard way that holding on too long slows everything down and burns you out. Letting go, trusting others, and bringing in people who are better than you in key areas is how you scale yourself, not just the business.

 

3. A future trend you’re watching?

 

We’re only scratching the surface of what AI can do to amplify creative thinking, not replace it. The next big leap won’t be in automation, but in using AI to help people express, build and solve problems in ways they never could before.

 

4. One quote you live by?

 

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
It highlights the importance of questioning effort, not just applying it.

 

5. A book/podcast you recommend?

 

Book: The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
It completely reframed how I think about relationships, leadership, and growth, especially in a startup. It’s a powerful reminder that not everyone has to agree with you, follow you, or stay with you – and that’s not only okay, it’s often necessary for progress. It’s about leading with integrity, not approval.

 

Want to be featured as TechRound’s Founder of the Week? Know someone who deserves to be recognised as a founder making waves in the startup landscape? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved here.