- Companies are increasingly trying to learn what consumers are saying about their brands online.
- But traditional customer feedback methods — like surveys or focus groups — aren't able to capture that data.
- Birdie is trying to solve that problem. It uses artificial intelligence to analyze data gathered from sources like online reviews or Reddit forums to produce actionable insights for clients.
- The Palo Alto-based startup just closed a $1.6 million seed round, led by Brazilian venture firm ASTELLA.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
A decade ago, companies may have turned to surveys or focus groups when they wanted to learn customer feedback.
But those methods now ignore an increasingly critical aspect of how consumer's shop: online reviews.
Birdie is trying to fill that gap. The company gathers online data like customer reviews and uses artificial intelligence to analyze it and produce actionable insights for clients. Founded by a group of Brazilian entrepreneurs, the technology is already in use by brands like Samsung and Procter & Gamble.
On Tuesday, the Palo Alto-based startup announced a $1.6 million seed round led by Brazilian venture firm ASTELLA.
With the latest funding infusion, Birdie plans to expand its presence in the US and grow the customer base.
"This is the largest market when it comes to market research: 44% of the spend on market research is in the US," co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Pat Osorio told Business Insider.
The team began fundraising in late 2019, but were left scrambling once the coronavirus outbreak began and many venture capital firms froze new investments. Ultimately, however, Birdie was able to raise well-over its $1 million goal.
And now demand is growing as the coronavirus pandemic continues to lead to a shift in consumer behavior.
"Brands want to understand what's going to be this 'new normal,'" said cofounder and CEO Alex Hadade. "Brands are lost. Even before they were lost because they lost control of the message because consumers have the power nowadays. Now, they really need help."
The company begins with publicly-available third-party data, including online review and threads in forums like Reddit, and combines it with internal data sources — like market share information. Birdie then automatically structures the data and analyzes it using the firm's proprietary AI technology, ultimately giving clients insight into consumer behavior.
Birdie's system, for example, helped Samsung discover an untapped market. On online forums, pet owners were touting the firm's washers and dryers because they were very effective in removing cat and dog fur. Samsung was then able to use that information to redirect its marketing efforts to try to grow its customer base within that audience.
In a similar example, Birdie found that Samsung was marketing one of its televisions as having top sound quality. Customers, however, were saying the opposite: The sound quality was poor, but the image quality was great.
"Because of that, they started changing how they were explaining the product, how they were positioning the product," Osorio told Business Insider.
Take a look below at the pitch deck that helped Birdie close its seed round.
