Native equips brands to digitally clone their target customers into test groups, ask them questions and instantly get actionable recommendations

Native AI, an always-on market intelligence platform, has raised $3.5M in seed funding to enable brands to measurably improve products, customer experience, marketing and revenue through generative AI-powered consumer research.

The round was led by JumpStart Ventures and Ivy Ventures, with participation from 11 Tribes Ventures and Connetic Ventures. Native was one of only 24 companies in the generative AI space to raise a venture-backed seed round in Q4 2022, according to Pitchbook.

“The ability to apply both proprietary and first-party insights breaks the mold of what’s possible in traditional consumer research. Frank and Sarah have built a remarkable team around their platform. At this stage, we know a company’s strongest predictors of success are its founders, and Native’s are absolutely no exception.”

Powered by proprietary, generative AI, Native uses real-time industry, consumer, and product data to create custom digital twins of target customer and consumer bases – which radically simplifies, expedites and improves how brands collect market insights. Users can then interact with the digital twins and ask specific questions about products, habits and preferences, getting actionable and unbiased answers within minutes.

“Consumer research is going through a renaissance and generative AI is leading the way,” said Frank Pica, CEO and co-founder of Native. “Imagine being able to chat with a custom clone of your target audience anytime, anywhere. This makes customer engagement substantially deeper, faster, better and more cost-effective than what’s possible with traditional market research. For instance, brands can get specific answers to key questions, like ‘what new flavors are you most likely to buy?’, instantly. That simply wasn’t possible before today.”

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Unlike most generative AI platforms trained on non-specific public datasets, Native allows users to see the actual source(s) for specific recommendations and answers. Native’s AI can also be configured to specific audiences, personas and customer bases, or a company’s own data, so the recommendations are targeted, more accurate, transparent and less biased than traditional market research and consumer surveys.

“The market potential for generative AI and digital twin technologies is exploding – and Native is at the forefront in bringing these two technologies together to deliver business value,” said Jerry Frantz, President of JumpStart Ventures. “Native’s platform has broad application across product development, sales and marketing delivering practical and transformative consumer insights.”

In addition to creating and engaging with digital twins, brands also use Native’s platform to monitor product, industry and competitor performance daily by extracting and analyzing consumer reviews from major retailer websites, like Amazon, Walmart and Target. The technology empowers companies to track and measure sentiment and brand health, benchmark against competitors and the market, identify whitespace opportunities and make meaningful changes to improve sales and customer experience.

Native is already working with many of the market’s most intelligent brands, including McKinsey & Company and Kellogg’s, saving users and partners millions of man-hours.

“Native’s dedication to pushing limits and creating something truly exceptional with proven ROI attracted us immediately,” said Scott Kraege, General Partner at Ivy Ventures. “The ability to apply both proprietary and first-party insights breaks the mold of what’s possible in traditional consumer research. Frank and Sarah have built a remarkable team around their platform. At this stage, we know a company’s strongest predictors of success are its founders, and Native’s are absolutely no exception.”

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