Emotional AI Startup Entropik Laps Up $25 Mn From Bessemer Venture Partners

Emotional artificial intelligence (AI) startup Entropik has secured $25 Mn in a Series B funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and SIG Venture Capital. Trifecta Capital, Alteria Capital, and long-time existing investor Bharat Innovation Fund also participated in the round. 

Founded in 2016 by Ranjan Kumar, Bharat Shekhawat and Lava Kumar, Entropik helps brands understand consumer behaviour through emotional intelligence. It enables organisations to optimise marketing campaigns and product experiences. 

Explaining its processes, Kumar said that Entropik uses a camera to understand consumers’ facial expressions and a webcam to understand consumers’ eye movements, along with analysing their voices. So, these are the three things that the platform analyses in any online conversation to provide consumer insights.

The AI startup manages a subscription-based platform that allows companies to test a certain number of marketing campaigns for an annual subscription fee. Some of its clients are P&G, Lego, KFC, Viacom 18, Voot, Zee5, Barclays, Axis Bank, ICICI, and Flipkart.

The startup has 17 patents in emotional AI technologies. Some of them are Facial Coding, Eye Tracking, and Voice AI, among others. 

Talking about fund deployment, Kumar said that Entropik is looking at 15 months of scaling around product IP, tech, and business. It will also expand its footprint across the US, Europe, and Asian markets. 

“On the business side, we have about 70% of our revenue coming from the US and Europe. We intend to double down on that and go a lot more enterprise over there. While on the growth side, we are targeting a 3X growth in the next 15 months and on the product side, we are consolidating offerings for CMO and CPO organisations into one umbrella,” Kumar said. 

Kumar added that the AI startup is currently prescriptive and analytical in nature, but it intends to become predictive. For this, the startup will have to invest a lot more in tech, data science, and research and development activities.

Including the current fundraising, it has raised over $35 Mn from investors to date. Its cap table includes Milind Chaudhary, JSW Steel, Arthavida Ventures, Jitendra Gupta, Alpha Wave Global and IDFC-Parampara fund, among others.

The startup claims to have tested over 100,000 online advertising campaigns on its platform. It asserted that it has witnessed 7X growth in revenue. It has 217 employees across the globe.

In India, it faces competition from Anthill Ventures-backed emotional AI startup Lightbulb.ai. 

According to an IMARC report, the country’s AI market was pegged at $680.1 Mn in 2022. The industry is expected to become a $3,935.5 Mn space by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 33.28%.