Vectorial raises $3 million in funding to expand its AI model that predicts consumer behaviour
San Francisco-based start-up Vectorial has raised $3 million in seed funding to expand its human behaviour simulation platform, which aims to help businesses test consumer-facing products, campaigns and AI agents before launching them in the market.
Vectorial was founded by Taranveer Singh, Jasmine Kaur and Rahul Garg, whose backgrounds span behavioural science, artificial intelligence (AI) development and market research.
The company, according to a report by Forbes, has developed a behaviour model called SAPIENS, which uses data on consumers’ socio-demographic, psychographic and behavioural traits to simulate how target customers might respond to products and digital experiences.
Vectorial’s platform allows businesses to test prototype products, campaign designs, product journeys and AI agents before making them available to real users. The simulations are intended to help companies understand potential consumer reactions and refine their offerings before launch.
The platform draws on public, enterprise and proprietary data to build its models, according to the news outlet's report. By allowing businesses to conduct research and iterate on product designs more quickly, Vectorial aims to address the time and cost involved in traditional consumer research.
Taranveer Singh, Vectorial’s chief executive officer, told Forbes that developing products using AI has become faster, while obtaining consumer feedback remains relatively slow. As a result, companies may launch products without conducting sufficient market research, he said.
The company claims its customers can conduct up to 40 times more research than they previously could, often at a lower overall cost.
The accuracy of simulated consumer behaviour is central to Vectorial’s proposition. According to the Forbes report, the company says SAPIENS achieves approximately 87% accuracy in published research benchmarks, compared with around 51-56% for generic large language models.
These figures are based on the benchmarks cited by the company and do not, by themselves, establish that simulated responses will reliably predict real-world consumer behaviour across every product or market.
The $3 million seed round includes backing from industry leaders and institutional investors, including Smilegate, SenseAI Ventures and UC Berkeley, according to the news report. Two Stanford-led funds and product leaders from Meta, Shopify and Mastercard are also participating.
Vectorial plans to use the funding to expand its datasets and models as it develops its human behaviour simulation capabilities.
The start-up is positioning its platform around testing specific products and consumer experiences before launch. This differs from approaches focused on helping businesses decide which markets to enter or which products to develop in the first place.
By offering on-demand simulations of target customer groups, Vectorial aims to help developers and businesses gather feedback earlier in the product development process and make changes before committing to a market launch.
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