Autentic AI raises €1.5m pre-seed for AI-led market research

Autentic AI raises €1.5m pre-seed for AI-led market research

9 October 2026: Autentic AI, a Spanish start-up that uses AI to interview consumers and experts, has raised €1.5 million in pre-seed funding from Baobab Ventures, Lanai Ventures, Acurio Ventures and Masia VC. The company announced the round on its home page and press page on 9 October.

Not yet independently verified. The company's own pages announce the round and list the coverage but carry no release text; the investors, founders, quotes and figures come from Tech.eu's account. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

Interviews run by software, findings read by researchers

Dani Diestre, Aniol Carreras and Jacob Bamio founded the company. Its platform runs interviews with hundreds of consumers and experts at the same time, which the company says cuts a study from weeks or months to days. The platform also analyses the conversations to find patterns and connections, and results can be split by age, region or product use.

The company says traditional market research is costly and slow, which limits how often businesses can gather customer feedback. Autentic AI wants research to be accessible enough that companies use customer insight in decisions more regularly.

Human researchers then interpret the findings and add context, so the product is a mix of AI-led interviewing, analysis and a researcher's review. Diestre puts it this way: "At Autentic, AI conducts the interviews and researchers interpret what the answers mean."

How the company says it keeps answers checkable

Autentic AI says participants are verified and paid for their time, and that each finding links to video evidence from the interviews, so a client can review the answers behind a conclusion. That addresses a worry that AI-run research may be hard to audit.

Diestre's pitch is about cost and cadence: "When a study costs €100,000 and takes three months, companies cannot run one every time they need an answer," he said, adding that research should be something companies can do every week.

Volumes, sectors and the plan for the money

The company reports about 1,000 interviews a day and expects to complete more than 400,000 by the end of 2026. Its platform serves four sectors: fast-moving consumer goods, retail, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, and strategy consulting and private equity.

The new funding will go on further automating the research process and on building its own network of verified consumers and industry experts. The company says this will reduce its reliance on third-party panels.

Spanish business papers framed the company as a challenger to Kantar, Ipsos and NielsenIQ; the company's press page lists that coverage but does not make the comparison itself. The page links to coverage in Spanish, Catalan and English-language outlets, including Tech.eu, Europa Press, Forbes España and Cinco Días.

Company profile on TrustList: Autentic AI

Sources

• Autentic AI: Announcing our 1.5 million pre-seed round (home page and press page, read 2026-10-13), 9 October 2026
• Tech.eu: Spanish Autentic AI raises €1.5M to accelerate AI-powered market research, 9 October 2026