Bertelsmann and Guy Oseary Back market research app that pays teenagers to pick their brains

Collaborative Fund and Imaginary Ventures, with additional investment from parent company BMG Bertelsmann and superstar manager Guy Osearyhave led a multi-million fundraising round for [cafeteria]a new market research app that pays teenagers to give their opinion on what they want from top US brands.

Co-founder and head Rishi Malhotra — known for creating India's leading streaming platform JioSaavn — says Malhotra [cafeteria] gathers marketing insights from a critical mass of teenagers through open-ended conversations that could start with questions like, “What would you like McDonald's to have on their menu?” or “What do you think of this Billie Eilish song?”

Big brands can use conversations with teens to gather insights — for example, teens on average say they're willing to pay $314 to see their favorite artist live — or spot trends before they're trendy — such as the Canadian singer songwriter Tate McCraethat teens were talking about in February, says Malhotra, whose app co-founders are former Luminary executives Mark Silverstein and Leeann Sheely.

“When something is already a trend, it can be a little late. But when something is pro-trend, it's very active,” says Malhotra, who came up with the idea for [cafeteria] observing his own teenage children. “There are also future tests (apps), like, what do you think about this disc?”

[cafeteria] launched three months ago and now has a few thousand users in 39 US states and 60 cities. On average they spend five minutes in [cafeteria]virtual “tables” — chat rooms where they answer AI-generated questions either by text or voice memo. While teens do earn money for providing feedback, Malhotra said they don't expect this to be a major profit-making effort for participants.

The seed funding round was led by Collaborative Fund, investors in Beyond Meat, Lyft and Sweetgreen, and Imaginary Ventures, investors in Skims, Glossier and Daily Harvest, followed by Oseary, an early investor in Peloton who leads venture capital firm Sound Ventures with Ashton Kutcher, which has stakes in Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, Pinterest, Robinhood and others.