SynopsisCreative-led digital agency Liqvd Asia is leveraging artificial intelligence and acquisitions for growth, aiming to provide faster, personalized advertising. The company plans to use IPO proceeds to acquire the remaining stake in performance marketing firm AdLift and establish a video content production hub, enhancing integrated offerings for clients.Agencies Arnab MitraCreative-led digital agency Liqvd Asia is betting on artificial intelligence and acquisitions to drive its next phase of growth, as brands increasingly seek faster, personalised advertising and agencies face pressure to produce more content at lower costs.The company, which has filed draft papers for a Rs 37 crore SME IPO, plans to use part of the proceeds to acquire the remaining stake in performance marketing firm AdLift and build a video content production hub, according to its DRHP.Liqvd announced the acquisition of AdLift in March 2025 in a Rs 50 crore two-phase transaction and now plans to use Rs 9 crore from the IPO proceeds to acquire the remaining 23.21% stake in the company.Founder Arnab Mitra said the acquisition was aimed at combining creative and performance capabilities.“We are a creative first company. They (AdLift) are a performance first company,” Mitra told ET. “Our acquisition style has been very simple. It’s that we continue to do what we do, they continue to do what they do. We merge the book at the holding level.”Mitra said clients are increasingly seeking integrated offerings instead of working with separate creative and media partners.Alongside acquisitions, Liqvd is also deepening investments in artificial intelligence to improve content creation efficiency and support personalised advertising at scale.The company has earmarked Rs 9.15 crore from the IPO proceeds to set up a full-fledged video content production hub.“We are automatising content creation for almost 60% of the work that we do,” Mitra said. “Still 40% work is where we feel there is a need of human intervention.”The company has created an AI-focused unit called AiKonic Studios, which combines large language models with human oversight.“Like a supply chain of LLMs where you put prompt in one side and the other side is a fantastic piece of creative goods,” he said. “But we have human intervention every point of time.”Liqvd has also started building smaller proprietary language models to control costs and reduce dependence on external systems.“We have started creating our own small language models,” Mitra said. “The API cost is something that we still control in a part of things that we do.”AI is already materially changing production timelines and costs, according to Mitra.Citing a recent campaign for Parle, he said Liqvd generated 250 versions of a single film using AI after shooting one master asset.“We shot one film. We take the input, we put it in the generative engine pipe and what we are getting is 250 versions,” he said.“To create 250 versions of the same film, it essentially means at least a 60-day time period,” Mitra said. “But today thanks to AI, we are actually doing it in a week’s time and in like 30% of the cost of the original film.”The agency is also experimenting with hyper-personalised advertising, particularly on digital platforms.“We are talking about hyper-personalisation at scale,” Mitra said. “We can both watch the same match right now and we will both get different messages at the same time.”Mitra said AI has also improved productivity within the organisation.“Our cost per person revenue has gone up by 80% recently and it is all thanks to AI,” he said.Still, he acknowledged that the economics of AI deployment remain a work in progress.“We don’t even know whether we are making money on every prompt that we are putting,” Mitra said.Going ahead, Liqvd plans to deepen investments in AI-enabled content creation.“We want to create content for large scale AI generative specialists in order to reduce their cost of production,” Mitra said.Read More News on...moreless