Key Takeaways
- Honeyjar AI raised $2M to build an AI-powered PR firm in a box.
- Integrates OpenAI, Anthropic, and Grok with LexisNexis, social, and Substack.
- Pitch: free comms pros from repetitive tasks for strategy and relationships.
Michelle Masek is selling what she calls a PR firm in a box.
Her startup Honeyjar AI raised $2 million in pre-seed funding this month to build an AI-powered workspace for communications professionals, Axios reported. The platform integrates multiple AI models—OpenAI, Anthropic, and Grok—with LexisNexis data and APIs from social media sites, Substacks, and podcasts.
“The vision is to allow comms folks the ability to focus on strategy, counsel, relationships and the parts of the job that only humans can do, but apply AI in a really thoughtful way,” Masek told Axios.
The company is targeting boutique to mid-size agencies, small in-house teams, and individual consultants at $250 per seat per month for early adopters. Masek and co-founder Nadia Jamshidi built the platform to solve what they see as a gap in the market.
“There are multinational agencies that are creating bespoke solutions that most of the industry will never see, and then there are in-house teams that are hacking together tools,” Masek told Axios. “But there’s just a huge gap in really solving that last mile of AI for the industry.”
Honeyjar joins a growing field of AI tools aimed at communications work. The same week as Honeyjar’s announcement, Clipbook announced its own seed round backed by former White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer and other industry veterans.
The funding round was led by Heather Hartnett, general partner and CEO at Human Ventures, and Kevin Mahaffey, founder of SNR Ventures. Angel investors include former a16z partner Margit Wennmachers, former New York Post CEO Jesse Angelo, and TechCrunch’s former editor-at-large Josh Constine.
Masek plans to expand beyond media relations into crisis communications, internal comms, and eventually the broader marketing suite.
