• Czech AI B2B Martech Lakmoos receives EUR 300K in its Pre-Seed round of investment
• The startup developed technology to build models of target groups based on pre-existing customer data
• With the new funding, Lakmoos can generate test kits for select verticals and attract clientele

This March, the well-known Czech VC fund Presto Ventures (invested in Choice recently) announced another investment. Brno-based AI-powered data research startup Lakmoos received EUR 300K of Pre-Seed funding from the fund.

One may refer to Lakmoos as a Gen Z startup as it was started by exceptionally young and aspiring founders who, nevertheless, can boast about notable experience and achievements. Kamila Zahradnickova (CEO) is a published and award-winning researcher of behavioral science; Jan Polišenský (CTO) is an AI system architect with six Microsoft Azure certifications, including Azure System Architect; and Roman Konecny (CSO) used to be an exceptionally prolific coder before he decided to pivot his expertise into sales.

Flabbergasted by the Unused Data

‘Before founding Lakmoos, I was quite involved in corporate research as a behavioral scientist. I helped shape campaigns for Nestlé and Ogilvy, as well as NGOs like The Nature Conversancy, and I was just flabbergasted by the amount of guesswork that was deemed acceptable,’ Ms Zahradnickova recalls.

This made her wonder about where the friction was, i.e. why companies don’t simply run proper testing with their target groups. In 2023, she met Mr Polišenský, shared her frustrations, and they started thinking about how to bring the voice of the customer into any meeting. As such, MsZahradnickova covered the science behind measuring minds, Mr Polišenský leveraged his pioneering research to develop the proprietary AI, and the third co-founder, Mr Konecny, built the first version of the Lakmoos app.

A look into the way large companies (the biggest being Microsoft) conduct their research made Lakmoos realize that more than an astounding 3/4 of time and energy got spent on administration (budgeting, tweaking project scopes, briefing data-collection agencies, securing approvals, etc.) instead of actual data collection, i.e. interacting with the participants or data. At that, established companies were sitting on the estimated USD 150-180M worth of data from past research.

AI-Simulated Data Models of Target Groups

Essentially, Lakmoos remedies this by creating data models that simulate how people make decisions. It uses proprietary AI to create precise copies of target groups with which companies can then interact at any time.

To do this, Lakmoos’ AI model combines three major data streams: publicly available data (e.g. from media and statistical offices), partner data (e.g. research agencies), and proprietary company data (eg. archive reports and CRM data).

The top layer is arguably the most interesting part because it is specifically tailored to a specific company and stays only in their own model. This gives companies access to the most accurate copy of their target audience.

It’s necessary to note that Lakmoos doesn’t use the data from one company to train data models for another one – for ethical reasons, as well as to avoid any possible distortion of accuracy.

‘It’s not a large language model but a layered model combining different types of analyses. An LLM is just the last step of the process – otherwise our clients would have to go through a pile of data to extract insights, which isn’t the point of Lakmoos,’ Ms Zahradnickova adds.

The Right Kind of Disruption

Lakmoos got its first angel investment in August 2023 from Sedlakova Legal and Alexander Braun of SKDK. Dr Michaela Garajová of Sedlakova Legal recollects the first encounter with Lakmoos: ‘We met Kamila during Startup Academy and she was always full of energy and spreading ideas around. It was and still is evident that she is willing to do whatever it takes to make Lakmoos a unicorn. For an investor, a passionate founder is essential.’

Sedlakova Legal helped Lakmoos set up the legal basis of the project. ‘We had the opportunity to see how they work and where they are going with their project, and they found the right hole in the market. Their data models simulate the behavior and decision making of target groups, combining artificial intelligence and behavioral science, which all businesses use to grow,’ Ms Garajová adds.

‘Over the last 20+ years, the market research industry has been lacking any major innovation. AI-driven trail blazers like Lakmoos bring exactly the kind of disruption that makes the incumbents nervous, – and rightfully so,’ Presto Ventures’ partner Vojta Roček comments.

Scaling Sales

Lakmoos will use the new funding to scale sales with test kits to 5 industries: banking, automotive, telco, energy, and healthcare. ‘Our model is layered and modular, meaning that it’s getting built step-by-step. This means that the banking layer can interact with the telco layer, as financial behavior is predictive of how much people spend on their phone credit. Using these optics, we chose industries that have enough data and also have a strong need to test their markets,’ Ms Zahradnickova explains.

The CEO shares that Lakmoos is already running demos and PoCs with seven household-name European banks and a prominent car manufacturer. This will allow the company to analyze the results as they roll in and continue expanding its clientele in the five mentioned verticals.

Lakmoos’s solution is invaluable for companies’ understanding of their customers and partners better by having them by their side metaphorically. This is achieved through utilizing existing knowledge and wider data to get instant actionable insights, contributing to the prompt generation of real value.