Bolt Insight, the market research company helping brands unlock consumer insights through AI-moderated research, announces it has received a £7 million funding round led by Pembroke VCT. Pembroke has invested £3.5 million, joined by 212, Active Partners, Velocity, and TIBAS Ventures.
Bolt Insight is evolving beyond being a research provider. The new funding will help to scale BoltChatAI globally, and the new ambition is to create the Assistant AI Chief Insights Officer, a real-time intelligence partner that acts as a decision-making platform for brands. This AI-powered system will be able to instantly answer business questions by tapping into a company’s historical research and market data as well as autonomously engage real consumers through new AI-moderated interviews, and deliver fresh, actionable insights, all within a record time. Bolt Insight believes this will fundamentally change the way insights are sourced, moving from passive, project-based research to an always-on, proactive intelligence hub embedded in business decision-making.
Bolt Insight is led by CEO and Co-Founder Hakan Yurdakul, who spent 14 years at Unilever in brand strategy and transformation, and CTO and Co-Founder Kerem Turgay, a Harvard and ETH Zurich-trained engineer with experience at Siemens, Coca-Cola and Afiniti. They are joined by Co-Founders Baybars Umur, Ester Marchetti and Melek Özsoy, leading a 50-strong team across London, Istanbul, Paris, New York, and Singapore.
Its platform has already interviewed more than 5 million consumers across 90 markets and is trusted by 11 of the world’s top 15 consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, including Unilever, Danone, and Reckitt. To date, the company has worked with over 150 brands in 20+ countries, achieving a 90% client renewal rate and has been recognised with multiple industry awards, most recently winning ‘Best Online Qual’ at the MRS Operations Awards.
The company has an impressive track record delivering on previous investment rounds including pre-seed and seed rounds (2020, 2022 and 2023 respectively) which were used by Bolt Insight to expand markets and grow the team. With demonstrable EU and UK strength and with plans to capitalise on the Assistant AI Chief Insights Officer potential, the broader market opportunity remains significant as, for example, North America accounts for 52% of the global market research spend.
London-headquartered Bolt Insight, established in 2019, is a consumer research firm enabling brands to engage with consumers globally and make data-driven decisions using AI. The investment will also help Bolt Insight strengthen its position in a global insights market valued at around $153 billion.
