MarTechInvestment

Text analytics platform Relative Insight plans to expand its operations in the US following a £5 million growth capital investment by YFM Equity Partners.

The Lancaster-based firm, ninth on our recent MarTech 50 ranking, has a growing international client list including Sky, Nespresso, Starbucks, General Mills, MetLife and Sony. It also has offices in London and New York.

The investment from YFM will be used to grow its customer base and continue to develop the platform to provide greater customer insights and data integrations for its clients.

The volume of text data such as surveys, reviews, social, customer experience and voice of the customer is exploding and can give crucial insights to decision makers if analysed quickly and easily.

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Customers upload data to the Relative Insight platform and the AI-based text analysis techniques highlight critical differences in consumer language to drive deeper insights into digital marketing, consumer analytics and customer experience. 

With its origins in law enforcement, the Relative Insight technology has been designed to provide the fastest possible time to critical insight and action for market trends, customer service issues, product opinions and marketing campaign effectiveness.

“With an ever-increasing amount of data available to businesses, many are struggling to make sense of this valuable information,” said CEO Ben Hookway. 

“This can prove vital in understanding what is causing business outcomes, and what can be done to change them. Our platform is able to rapidly analyse millions of words and compare them across a range of variables to highlight the critical differences in consumer language, helping to explain market trends, customer behaviour and provide actionable insight including making communication more effective with target audiences.

“Having seen rapid growth over the last four years, the business is now embarking on the next stage of its journey as we expand in the US.

“We believe that YFM is the ideal partner to support us. As well as having an established track record scaling SaaS businesses, they have a real understanding of our market and are a great fit culturally – we like the team and are confident they will add real value.”

YFM has a growing national portfolio of software and tech businesses, including data transformation software company Matillion and innovation intelligence provider Vypr.

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Dan Freed, partner at YFM, added: “Data and text analytics is a rapidly expanding market and one with huge potential given the ever-increasing demand for improved business intelligence, and customer insights. The Relative Insight platform is a compelling proposition helping companies to understand why things happen. 

“The heritage of the business resonates with us, and we believe it is a best-in-class platform led by an experienced and very impressive management team.”