Conveo raises $5.3 million seed round to transform the market research industry

Consumer behaviour is evolving faster than ever, driven by AI, the Creator Economy, and the rise of Gen Z and Alpha. At the same time, shifting regulations and cultural changes are forcing brands to rethink how they engage with customers.

Yet, most brands still rely on research methods that cannot keep up. Traditional qualitative research is slow and costly, and it often leads to companies not conducting any research or making decisions with incomplete knowledge, which often leads to missed opportunities and expensive mistakes.

Conveo is building the AI-powered solution, to transform the growing $120 billion global market research industry. Already trusted by industry leaders like Unilever, Orange, Sanofi, and Google, Conveo’s AI research coworker runs hundreds of AI-moderated video interviews overnight, in any language, and at a fraction of the cost.

By automating the entire research process—from project set-up to interviewing and instant analysis—Conveo delivers real-time insights 100x faster than conventional methods, often spotting connections humans would overlook.

With $5.3m in seed funding secured from Y Combinator, 6 Degrees Capital, Entourage Capital, Pitchdrive, and Syndicate One, Conveo is set to expand its core US & European markets aggressively.

From living the Problem to Building the Solution

In his previous scale-up, CEO and Co-founder Dieter De Mesmaeker saw how businesses made high-stakes decisions with insufficient research, leading to costly mistakes and missed opportunities. Co-founder Hendrik Van Hove, experienced firsthand at McKinsey how traditional research was slow, manual, and expensive, making it challenging to gather insights at scale. Seeing how AI could finally bring change, they teamed up to build the Qualtrics of qualitative research.

Hendrik: "I've seen the value of great research at McKinsey doing hundreds of interviews and countless surveys myself. But it was always extremely painful with the scheduling, note taking, and long nights analyzing. That’s why companies don’t do nearly enough research. We've all seen it. Companies losing billions making the wrong investments or missing out on great opportunities."

Dieter De Mesmaeker, CEO and Co-founder, YC alum Conveo: "We can’t imagine anyone doing it the old way two years from now. 90% of the time in qualitative research is spent on activities that can be automated, so researchers can spend time actually creating value from these insights.

An AI-powered research co-worker

Niels Schillewaert, PhD, Founder of the global insights agency Human8 and Professor of Marketing at the Vlerick Business School, leads Conveo's research efforts.
Dieter De Mesmaeker: “We combine decades-long research and strategic experience with deep technical expertise. Most of our competitors are only strong in one of the two areas whereas both are critical.”

As AI capabilities rapidly progress, Conveo is building the AI research ‘co-worker’ within organizations. Anyone, from research or marketing to the CEO, can ask Conveo a question about the customer. With perfect memory, Conveo can instantly surface previous research, integrate third-party data, or launch new research in real time.

This is a game changer for customer-centric organizations, lowering the barriers to gathering insights, driving better decisions, and ultimately creating better products, and services.

Pieter Van Paemel, Senior Insights Manager, Edgard & Cooper: "We don’t see Conveo as a replacement for face-to-face interviews but as a new research method combining the best of qualitative and quantitative approaches. We can now execute projects that were previously impossible. Combining quantitative data with hearing customers in their own words is super powerful in aligning our teams."

Wendy Francois, Market Researcher at Orange: "Of course, we were skeptical about how our customers would react to AI interviews. But after thorough testing, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive."

www.conveo.ai

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