BluePill: Rapid and Affordable Market Research

BluePill aims to eliminate the traditional six-week wait time and $20,000 cost associated with market research. The company provides consumer insights in just 5 minutes at a 10% cost.

According to a statement made on November 12, BluePill closed a $6 million seed round to develop AI consumers that simulate the digital copies of target audiences and analyze how they respond to products, campaigns, and business strategies. This funding round was led by Ubiquity Ventures, with participants including Pioneer Square Labs and Flying Fish Ventures.

Additionally, investor David Wickwire from the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Rotem Hershko, who previously served as a product manager at Maersk and worked at Amazon Global, and former Sequoia partners and ThirdLove co-founders David Spector are among the names involved in this funding.

These resources will be used by BluePill for team expansion and the development of industry-specific AI libraries. These libraries will be designed to cover consumer packaged goods, healthcare, sports, and entertainment industries.

The company's founder, Ankit Dhawan, managed research programs created for international markets while leading product development efforts at Amazon Global Marketing. As research cycles were slow and costly, user motivations often remained unclear in analyzing existing data.

While managing generative AI initiatives at Amazon Web Services, Dhawan recognized the opportunity to combine large-scale data analysis with behavioral drivers. This approach promised to provide quick insights without the delays typical of traditional research. Since then, BluePill was born from this idea.

BluePill's platform allows brands to explore messages, product concepts, packaging ideas, and campaign directions. The AI models are designed to simulate consumer reactions in real time.

Traditional research groups, like Ipsos, Qualtrics, and Nielsen, rely on human panels, which can take weeks for these processes. Additionally, these studies can reach high costs. Many AI-focused companies use large language models that are not based on actual consumer data, which provides limited information about purchasing behaviors. However, BluePill collects consumer data from various sources, including surveys, public speeches, and brand studies. These digital consumers undergo validation checks against human panels and receive constant updates to reflect current events.

The company achieves a match rate of 93% when compared to real human responses. Brands can use the platform to conduct surveys with AI consumers, participate in virtual focus groups, or review creative ideas, receiving results in just 5 minutes. Monthly subscriptions start at $99 for standard libraries, while corporate plans for custom libraries and unlimited tests start at $17,999.

Kettle & Fire uses BluePill to develop packaging ideas, flavor concepts, and product messaging prior to product launch. Leah Swalling, the Brand Management Director of Kettle & Fire, stated in their remarks that they verified the platform's accuracy with parallel human surveys. “We can quickly reach the minds of our customers and iterate,” she said.

Another example is the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball team. The team uses the system to review fan feedback related to sponsorship programs and engagement concepts. Chris Kennedy, the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Analytics for Seattle Mariners, noted that BluePill provides the team with the ability to explore comprehensive ideas and make decisions based on simulated fan responses.

BluePill claims to reduce research costs by up to 90%, provide turnaround times that are 100 times faster compared to traditional methods, and allow teams to conduct unlimited tests on large audiences.