Collaborative Fund and Imaginary Ventures receive additional investment from BMG’s parent company Bertelsmann and superstar manager Guy Oseary on a new market research app that gives teens their opinion on what they want from America’s top brands. Led a multi-million dollar funding round for Cafeteria.
Co-founded and led by Rishi Malhotra, known for creating India’s top streaming platform JioSaavn, Malhotra says (the cafeteria) uses open-ended, one-on-one conversations to find out important questions, starting with questions like: We gather marketing insights from millions of teenagers. “What would you like to see on the menu at McDonald’s?” or “What do you think about this Billie Eilish song?”
Big brands can use conversations with teens to glean insights. For example, on average, teenagers say they are willing to pay $314 to see their favorite artist live. Or identifying trends before they become fashionable. You can see what trends teenagers have, like Canadian singer-songwriter Tate McRae. Malhotra said the app’s co-founders are former Luminary executives Mark Silverstein and LeeAnne Seeley.
“Once something is already trending, it might be a little slow. But if something is pre-trend, it’s very practical,” says Malhotra. Malhotra came up with the idea for (Cafeteria) after observing his teenage children. “There are also future tests (applications) like what do you think about this record?”
(cafeteria) was soft launched three months ago and now has thousands of users in 39 states and 60 cities in the US. They spend an average of five minutes at a virtual “table” (in the cafeteria), a chat room where they answer questions generated by artificial intelligence via text or voice notes. Although the teens are earning money by providing feedback, Malhotra said he doesn’t expect this to become a major money-making endeavor for participants.
The seed funding round was led by Collaborative Fund, an investor in Beyond Meat, Lyft, and Sweetgreen, and Imaginary Ventures, an investor in Skims, Glossier, and Daily Harvest, followed by early Peloton investor and venture capital firm Sound It was led by Oseary, who heads Ventures. Ashton Kutcher has invested in Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, Pinterest, Robinhood, and more.
(Cafeteria) App (Cafeteria)
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