Streetbees Raises $40 Million Series B to Advance Deep Tech for Decoding Human Behaviour
Latest round, led by Lakestar, to accelerate development of AI human intelligence platform used by 8 of the world’s 10 largest consumer goods companies
LONDON (28 OCTOBER, 2020) - Streetbees today closed a $40 million Series B round to accelerate the development of the world’s first human intelligence platform. With its own community of 3.5 million consumers capturing emotion and context ‘in the moment’ when they engage with brands, Streetbees uncovers unique growth opportunities by applying deep neural networks to analyse this unstructured data. 80% of human decisions are made offline, and just as Google indexed the online world, Streetbees makes the offline world visible and searchable by indexing its proprietary dataset of millions of offline moments.
Advances in data science and the proliferation of smart devices allowing consumers to share their brand experience in real time has seen 8 of the world’s 10 largest consumer goods companies – including PepsiCo, Unilever and Procter and Gamble – rely on Streetbees to provide intelligence they cannot find elsewhere. This round, led by Lakestar with participation from Latitude, Atomico, GMG Ventures and Octopus, recognises the potential for Streetbees to address a global market estimated to be worth $300bn.
“Human reality is incredibly complex, and while technology has made progress in healthcare and pharmaceuticals, we’re still no closer to truly understanding the decisions that we make. Our behaviour is captured online and in the artificial reality of social media, but the near 80 percent of our lives that happens in the offline world, remains untapped,” explains Tugce Bulut, CEO, Streetbees. “Streetbees is building the world’s first human intelligence platform with a completely proprietary dataset to index these offline moments in consumers’ own words. With this round of funding, we will accelerate the creation of a searchable world where brands can finally decipher human behaviour and decode the real reasons why consumers do what they do.”
Over the past 12 months, Streetbees has achieved 150 percent revenue growth and reached a critical mass of proprietary data in the consumer goods space, allowing brands to access a searchable database, rich enough to answer their questions. The Series B round allows Streetbees to fund data acquisition across a variety of new verticals including Media and Entertainment and Finance that will unlock significant new sales opportunities. With its headquarters in London, an office in Lisbon and a new office in North America, Streetbees also plans to increase headcount from 100 to 230 over the next 12 months.
Through COVID-19, Streetbees has played a critical role for national health services and NGOs such as the NHS and the Red Cross, allowing them to understand how consumer fears and mental health have been evolving through the pandemic. Streetbees has also released a public facing Mood of the World platform, providing a real time view of consumer emotion across 50 markets, derived from open text.
Christoph Schuh, Partner at Lakestar, says, “We are very proud to lead the Series B round and to join Streetbees on its successful journey. The market for customer research is largely controlled by an oligopoly of legacy panel players and has seen little disruption. Streetbees has an innovative always-on way of engaging with the customer base at global scale to quickly and accurately understand their evolving needs and behaviours. The uncertainty of the global COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the value and necessity of having a real-time product suite that turns raw data into customer intelligence and actionable insights.”
LocalGlobe, an early investor in Streetbees, is investing again through its breakout fund, Latitude. George Henry, General Partner, LocalGlobe/ Latitude, explains, “Much like Bloomberg became the platform of choice for professionals requiring up-to-the-minute access to financial market information, we have always felt that Streetbees will become the de facto market research platform for brands needing real-time access to rapidly changing consumer markets.”
Alan Hudson, Managing Partner, GMG Ventures LLP, an investor in the round, explains, “In the current market environment, more than ever, brands need to obtain qualitative real time human insights at scale. Streetbees’ global network of engaged consumers and its AI based platform provide these insights and power its clients’ decision making, both at the strategic and operational levels. We believe the team’s talent and focus further enhance its positioning as a true disruptor in the market research sector. We are delighted to continue our support of the company in its latest funding round and look forward to seeing Streetbees continuing to thrive.”
About Streetbees
Streetbees reveals how people behave, and why, by analysing real-life moments collected from its own global community. Over 3.5 million users – or ‘bees’ – across 190 countries worldwide use the chat-style Streetbees app to share moments from their daily lives via videos, photos and text. Through applying advanced natural language processing technology to the results, Streetbees uncovers not just what they do, but also why they do it, and what drives them – and predicts what they may do next.
Streetbees’ partners with world leading brands across the Consumer Goods, Media and Entertainment, Retail & Insurance sectors. Clients include Unilever, PepsiCo, Sony Pictures, Carlsburg, Santander, Ikea, Vodafone and L’Oreal.
About Lakestar
Lakestar is one of Europe’s leading venture capital firms investing in technology companies led by exceptional entrepreneurs. The team’s early investments included Skype, Spotify, Facebook and airbnb. Since raising a first fund in 2013, Lakestar manages an aggregated volume of over EUR 1bn across three early stage funds, and more recently a growth fund. The company has expanded and broadened its portfolio and holds investments in the likes of Opendoor, Oscar, GYG, Glovo, Sennder, Eigen, FiveAI, Revolut and Hometogo to name a few. Lakestar has presence in Berlin, Zurich and London. Lakestar helps companies to identify new markets and expand into them rapidly, with a focus on the US and Europe. The team advises and supports portfolio companies in business development, recruitment, technology and marketing. The investments range from early stage companies to those in their growth stage.
