Maven leads £4 million funding round in Relative Insight

We are delighted to announce that Maven has led a £4 million investment in language analytics specialist, Relative Insight, to support its growth strategy for expansion into the USA and further development of its technology.

Relative Insight's linguistic analysis platform allows companies to gain strategic value from language data assets, such as surveys, reviews, CRM and social media, which represent rich sources of business intelligence and can provide a significant competitive advantage if analysed in the right way. Unstructured data, such as language, makes up 80% of worldwide annual data growth according to IDC – making it a critical asset to be leveraged. 

Clients such as DFS and John Lewis use Relative Insight to understand language differences between key audiences, which is then applied in optimising marketing, customer experience and employee engagement activities to improve results.

Born out of a 10-year research project with Lancaster University’s linguistic and cyber security departments, Relative Insight originally designed its technology to support law enforcement agencies identify criminals masquerading as children in chat rooms. Today, the same methods are applied to help brands interact and communicate more effectively with their audiences, using comparison of the way different audiences speak to derive insights that fuel smarter strategy and communication.

With the platform having been adopted by many leading advertising and marketing clients, both in UK and US, Relative Insight is opening an office in New York to support those accounts and grow the customer base as part of a major expansion programme to keep pace with demand for its service. 

Dave Furlong, Investment Director at Maven, said:
“Relative Insight has developed an innovative, industry leading platform using cutting-edge linguistic analytics. It’s a fascinating sector and the team has a range of industry expertise able to support its ambitious growth plans. This transaction is a great example of Maven’s VCTs working alongside the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund to support an ambitious 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 programme of growth.”

Ben Hookway, CEO at Relative Insight, added:
“The support from Maven allows us to further accelerate the growth of Relative Insight. We have a world class language analysis development centre in Lancaster, which along with our office in London is bringing better and simpler language analysis to all kinds of businesses. Expanding into the USA is the next logical step for us.”