Clipping armies behind tech’s loudest launches
The loudest tech launches of the last two years didn’t buy their reach — they distributed it. Cluely and Higgsfield turned clippers into their primary channel, and the numbers followed.
- Cluely · Higgsfield
- AI startups — Global
- TikTok · X
- Publicly documented industry story — not a Presence campaign
- August 2026
Challenge
A launch is an attention war with a deadline: an early-stage company has a few days to make the market believe something is happening, and no brand account can post its way to that impression on its own.
Insight
Hundreds of native clips landing at once do what no single channel can — they make the algorithm, and everyone scrolling, conclude that the whole feed is talking about you.
It is also the cheapest reach available to an early-stage company: at the $1–2 CPMs clipping campaigns run at, flooding the feed for a week costs less than most teams’ first paid-social test.
Approach
Cluely skipped the classic ad budget and hired more than 700 clippers to cut its launch film and its founder’s most provocative moments into vertical clips, posted across TikTok and X at the same time. The launch video alone crossed 13 million views, the tech feed stayed saturated for days, and two months later the company announced a $15M round led by a16z.
Higgsfield runs the same mechanic permanently: the AI-video company pays creators for every clip posted made with its tools, turning its own user base into a standing distribution network that demos the product in public. Every feature launch ships with an army already in place.
Results
700+
clippers hired by Cluely
- Clippers Cluely hired to cut and post its launch content across TikTok and X instead of running classic ads.
- Launch campaign
- Public reporting, as published by Presence
13M+
views on the launch video
- Views crossed by Cluely’s launch video alone, before counting the clips cut from it.
- Launch window
- Public reporting, as published by Presence
$1.3B
Higgsfield valuation
- Valuation Higgsfield now carries, with its pay-per-clip creator programme as the marketing engine.
- As last reported
- Public reporting, as published by Presence
Related work
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Tell us what you are releasing and where it needs to land — we answer with a plan, not a deck.