Pembroke has invested £3.5m, joined by 212, Active Partners, Velocity and TIBAS Ventures.

Bolt Insight plans to use the new funding to help it scale its qualitative research platform BoltChatAI, launched in 2022, and strengthen the company’s position in the global insights market.

The company has used previous pre-seed and seed funding to expand markets and grow the team.

Bolt Insight also has ambitions to create what it called ‘the assistant AI chief insights officer’ to answer business questions by tapping into an organisation’s historical research and engaging with consumers through AI-moderated interviews.

Bolt Insight employs around 50 people across London, Istanbul, Paris, New York and Singapore. It was founded in 2019 by former Unilever executive Hakan Yurdakul and Kerem Turgay, an engineer with experience at Siemens and Coca-Cola, alongside co-founders Baybars Umur, Ester Marchetti and Melek Özsoy.

Andrew Wolfson, chief executive, Pembroke Investment Managers, described Bolt Insight as an example of “how AI can lead change in an established industry by putting real consumer voices at the heart of decision-making”.

Wolfson added: “As demand for real-time intelligence continues to grow, Bolt is perfectly positioned to lead a new generation of consumer understanding. We’re proud to support the team as they expand globally and continue redefining what’s possible in market research.”

Hakan Yurdakul, chief executive and co-founder, Bolt Insight, said: “When we launched Bolt Insight in 2019, our mission was to bring real consumer voices into the heart of business decision-making.”

The company is building on that foundation, added Yurdakul, saying the new investment will power the next phase of the company’s journey, with its aims to create “a real-time intelligence system that can answer critical business questions instantly or engage real consumers when new thinking is needed”. 

Pictured: Bolt Insight’s Baybars Umar, Melek Özsoy, Hakan Yurdakul, Ester Marchetti