Joseph Rutakanga spent eight years, looking for tools that can help companies collect consumer data. In the end he just decided to build them.
Now his startup, entitled Rwazi, collected a series A with a value of $ 12 million and under the leadership of Bonfire Ventures to help companies in the market intelligence and insight of consumer. He founded the company in 2021 with co -founder Eric (*12*).
“There was a lot of consumer and market data for places such as the United States, Great Britain and several parts of Western Europe, perhaps in some traces in Canada and Australia. But when it comes to international markets, including economic giants such as India, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Turkey and China, there was nothing useful,” said Techcrunch. “Lack of a real image of consumption, what consumers wanted or how their behavior changed.”
Initially, he thought about solving the problem, buying statistics from government trading agencies. But finally he discovered that the data is outdated, crushed, and sometimes simply non -existent. Then he turned to buy consumer reports and considered them often inaccurate or difficult to prove.
“The solution was not a survey. It was not panels. This is what we call zero-partia data; consumption data that is voluntarily made available by the consumer, in their own routine, captured using advanced validation and verification systems, anywhere, in real time,” Rutakangwa said.
The couple through a startup finally built a system of intelligence software powered by artificial intelligence, which allows companies to have real -time visibility in consumer markets. It helps to predict consumers’ behavior and discover vital areas that ought to be noted, which in turn can help reduce the costs of acquiring customers and increase customer loyalty. Rwazi clients include the best consumer companies, equivalent to Coca-Cola, Pampers, Visa and Nestle, on the Rwazi website.
The company previously collected a round of $ 4 million in 2022, under the leadership of Bonfire Ventures.
This time Rutakangwa described the strategy of raising funds as “selective”, saying that he and (*12*) focused on “finding the right partners, those who deeply understand the problem.” Other investors in this round are Santa Barbara Ventures, Newfund and Alumni Ventures.
Rwazi said that he would use fresh capital to scale his second AI pilot to help customers make more accurate decisions in real time. He also hopes to employ more engineers. Currently, it downloads data from 190 countries, with clients primarily in the USA and Europe. The goal, as Rutakangwa said, is to further build infrastructure, which records the evolving world of consumer data.
Rwazi has a competition, including from older viewing companies of GFK and IPSOS consumers. But Rutakangwa said that Rwazi is different from his competitors, because he is not based on modeled or deduced data. Instead, your personal infrastructure allows insight and execution; Knowing what to do and what to do about it, he continued.
“Victory today means predicting changes, vision of bends and making some moves before the competition even senses a change,” he said.