- The company Conveo has raised $50 million in its Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to $55.8 million.
- The startup, which offers AI video interviews, collaborates with over 50 companies, including Google and Canva, that are among the Fortune 500.
- The funding round was led by DST Global Partners and Balderton Capital in order to support Conveo’s expansion in the US.
In 2013, Dieter De Mesmaeker presented American investors with strong growth figures but failed to secure their investment. Nevertheless, he managed to turn DataCamp into a leading edtech platform.
11 years later, again benefiting from strong growth, his new company, Conveo, an AI video interview startup, secured $50 million in Series A funding.
The investment, made early on by DST Global Partners, which had previously invested in companies such as Facebook, Airbnb, and Spotify, was led by Balderton Capital, with other participants including Visionaries, 6 Degrees Capital, and Y Combinator, which initially supported Conveo in its summer 2024 batch.
Conveo has received $55.8 million in funding, which is helping fuel its growth in the United States. The company is headquartered in New York, has its engineering operations in Antwerp, and also maintains offices in London and San Francisco.
“We have built the infrastructure to gather, structure and synthesise consumer data at unprecedented scale, using best-in-class research methodologies, vetted participants and purpose-built data architecture. That infrastructure is already running across more than 50 Fortune 500 companies,” said De Mesmaeker.
Each year global brands invest more than $1 trillion in advertising and the top 2,000 companies allocated €1.44 trillion to research and development in 2024. The entire effort depends on consumer research, which the ESOMAR organisation estimates at $153 billion. Yet Conveo believes that most tools in this area address only individual questions and do not provide continuous insights into consumers’ desires.
From DataCamp to Conveo
De Mesmaeker had almost 10 years to build up DataCamp before he resigned as chief technology officer in 2022.
In February 2024, he returned along with Hendrik Van Hove, who had previously worked at McKinsey; the two of them joined the summer 2024 batch at Y Combinator. Their aim was to address a problem that De Mesmaeker was familiar with: traditional research is generally so slow that insights become available only after important decisions have already been made.
The AI interviewer offered by Conveo conducts video interviews with consumers and adjusts its follow-up questions based on the individual’s answers rather than sticking to a predetermined script. The company states that more than half of its valuable insights are derived from the AI-generated follow-up questions.
StoryLines, Conveo’s most recent product, takes this concept further by conducting ongoing research into a brand’s core questions, thereby eliminating the need for the company to commission separate studies each time. As a result, a common knowledge base is established for all company members. For instance, Canva has employed StoryLines to test advertising concepts across various countries as it expands its campaigns.
Conveo is still smaller than a number of its most highly funded competitors. Listen Labs, a company headquartered in San Francisco and financed by Sequoia and Ribbit Capital, has raised $100 million and could soon reach a value of almost $1.5 billion. Remesh, which conducts AI-moderated online focus groups, has raised more than $50 million from General Catalyst.
Voxpopme, a video survey platform well known for its services, has now adopted AI moderation in order to attract similar business clients. Unlike other companies, Conveo provides GDPR-compliant hosting by default for customers in Europe and offers both a continuous data layer and one-off projects, which is attractive to firms that require both types of service.
Betting against Silicon Valley’s bigger checks
This year, AI research start-ups have secured large funding rounds. Simile, a company engaged in synthetic research, raised $200 million at a $2 billion valuation just five months after its Series A. GetWhy from Denmark has added $8.4 million in debt to its $34.5 million Series A.
In this setting, Conveo’s $50 million funding round is not primarily about setting records but rather represents a shrewd investment in the market for continuously updated human data as it competes with synthetic-panel start-ups for the same customers.
James Wise, a Balderton partner who also backed Geordie AI’s $30 million Series A, said: “Dieter, Hendrik and the team have built an exceptional product, and we are excited to continue supporting them as they expand in the U.S. and define this new category.”
Whether the $50 million will provide Conveo with enough time and resources to build the infrastructure it has planned, or whether the Fortune 500 companies will transfer their research budgets to the platform that raises the most money the following year.
