New York-based Strella, which uses AI to speed up market research, has closed on a $4 million seed round from investors including Palo Alto, Calif.-based Decibel Partners and Menlo Park, Calif.-based Unusual Ventures.
The startup, aka Corner3, runs a SaaS service that puts AI in the hands of customers, allowing them to run fast, continuous user research. Strella was co-founded by two longtime friends — former Bain Consulting executive Lydia Hilton and Priya Krishnan, a former DoorDash executive.
Market Research at Scale
“Using Strella’s AI-moderated interviews with real-time synthesis, companies can make informed decisions in hours, not weeks,” Hylton, who serves as the company’s CEO, said in a recent LinkedIn post to announce the startup. Strella helps qualitative research at scale across time zones and languages, and instantly synthesizes findings into shareable, actionable insights and highlight reels, she added.
Hylton has a B.S. in computer engineering from GeorgiaTech and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University, and is on leave from a M.S. program in computer science at Stanford. Her co-founder Krishnan has an M.B.A. in innovation and entrepreneurship from the Wharton School, and an A.B. degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.
“Traditionally, if you wanted any scale in a customer research project, you had to run surveys. It’s way too painful to do human-led interviews if you want to have 30, 40, 50 interviews on a topic,” Hylton told Venture Beat in an interview. “We’re now able to get the richness of qualitative feedback that you get from a conversation, but at the scale of a survey and at the speed of a survey.”
Over a Dozen Customers
Krishnan, Strella’s chief operating officer, said research has often taken a backseat in companies because it takes a long time to gather, often costing a pretty packet too.
“My first role in UX Research taught me the importance of gathering customer feedback at every stage of the product development cycle. But throughout my career in product and growth, I’ve seen research get skipped too often due to time constraints or arrive too late to inform key decisions,” Krishna said in a LinkedIn post. “This has been a key motivation behind starting Strella — because it no longer has to be this way.”
Commercial Real Estate
MacKenzie Companies
Advertising / Media / Communications / Public Relations
Nevins & Associates
Financial Services / Investment Firms
Chesapeake Corporate Advisors
Commercial Real Estate
Monday Properties
Venture Capital
Blue Delta Capital Partners
Internet / Technology
Foxtrot Media
Strella reportedly has signed up 15 customers, including Duolingo, Square, Spanx and Purple Carrot, that use its AI system’s multilingual feature to conduct market research interviews.
“I was amazed by the speed to insights, how seamless it is to build discussion guides, and the AI moderator’s ability to ask thoughtful follow up questions based on responses!” said Sarika Patel of Duolingo.
Renmind’s Luke Armstrong said he was “especially impressed with how adaptive and dynamic” Strella’s AI moderator was as his design agency conducted market research.
