Black Swan wades in $18.5 million to boost consumer research for consumer packaged goods companies

As a new age of consumer research dawns, UK-based data science and consumer behaviour prediction company Black Swan Data has raised $18.5 million in funding. Leading the round was venture capital firm Oxx, with participation from existing investor AlbionVC. The funding will drive the development of more advanced features and capabilities in Trendscope, the platform’s core software platform, and its expansion in the U.S. market.

Founded in 2011, Black Swan Data aims to disrupt the $90-billion global market research industry by using AI to unlock insights from the data and content published by consumers online. The company claims to predict consumer needs and trends with 89% accuracy rating more than six months into the future. It enables consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to develop more relevant innovation ideas and improve their new product launch success rates (often cited as having a less than 75% failure rate).

And as the adoption of AI-driven observational research and predictive analytics accelerates dramatically, the company’s business has also increased manifold in the last few years. With customers including the likes of PepsiCo, Harley Davidson, Danone, Cosnova, J&J, Kraft Heinz, P&G, the company said its subscription revenues have grown by more than 100% in each of the last three years.

Talking about the recent funding, Steve King, CEO and co-founder of Black Swan Data said: “This latest funding will allow us to build upon the growth of the last year and significantly invest in our core product, Trendscope, bringing customers new features and usability that enable them to create reliably relevant new products and shape a modern marketing innovation process for the future, particularly at a time when brands need a cost-effective way of continuous product innovation.” 

Philip Edmondson-Jones, principal at Oxx added: “Trendscope gathers unstructured data from disparate sources, and refines this using proprietary AI technology, to provide both granular and statistically accurate predictions. It’s increasingly becoming the backbone of the consumer insights tech-stack, at a crucial time of change and challenges in the CPG industry.”

Ed Lascelles, partner at AlbionVC concluded: “The team wants to revolutionise insights through data, and we have been impressed at the rapid growth of the flagship product Trendscope over recent years.”