Language processing startup Relative Insight raises $5 million Series A to fuel its expansion into the U.S. market

By 2025, the world is expected to create and replicate 163ZB of data, of which a significant amount is unstructured language data, according to estimates from research firm IDC. Enter Relative Insight, a language processing tech startup that helps B2B and B2C companies better understand their audiences through comparative linguistics by analyzing unstructured and undefined data sets such as customer feedback, social media, online product ratings and reviews, web page copy and market research surveys.

Today, Relative Insight announced it has completed a $5 million Series A investment to open its first U.S. office in New York City and continue development of its AI-driven platform. The round was led by Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”), one of the UK’s leading private equity and alternative asset managers.

Founded in 2012 by Ben Hookway, James Walkerdine, Phil Greenwood, and Rich Wilson, the Lancaster, United Kingdom-based Relative Insight is a language understanding platform, using comparative language analysis to inform business intelligence and communications strategy for B2B and B2C brands.

Relative Insight is a new kind of audience research tool, using comparative language analysis to help marketers discover real insights and turn them into communication. Relative Insight platform’s leading technology was developed through a 10-year R&D project with Lancaster University, designed to help law enforcement detect language distinctions in online chat rooms. Today, Relative Insight’s intelligence is applied in market research and customer experience optimization, helping companies better understand how to communicate with their audiences.

“Our value proposition is simple. We help companies address the immense challenge of analyzing unstructured language data, which is growing at a rapid pace,” said Ben Hookway, CEO of Relative Insight. “With our platform we’ve seen huge success in helping companies quickly and accurately gain value from their existing data and provide analysis that results in significant business insights— a process that historically has been done manually. Expanding into the U.S. market is the next logical step for the growth of our business.”

Relative Insight’s comparative analysis has been successful in campaign strategy development, market research and customer experience optimization, helping brands interact and communicate more effectively and better understand their audiences. Developed through a 10-year research project with Lancaster University’s linguistic and cybersecurity departments, the technology platform compares language sets to detect linguistic and attitudinal differences between consumers and brands as well as language differences over time.

“Relative Insight has developed an innovative, industry leading platform using cutting-edge linguistics analytics. It’s a fascinating sector and the team has a range of industry expertise able to support the company’s ambitious growth plans,” said Dave Furlong, Investment Director at Maven. “Today’s transaction is a great example of Maven’s private client funds working alongside the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund to support a local business with a flexible funding package to enable it to grow globally. We look forward to working with Ben and the team as the business embarks on an exciting program of growth.”