A startup that helps data teams at consumer packaged goods companies (CPG) analyze and visualize their data through an artificial intelligence platform won a Madrona Venture Labs startup formation competition on Sunday.
NoxuData received $250,000 in pre-seed funding, in addition to mentorship from industry experts, entrepreneurs, and investors. The week-long event, titled Launchable: Generative Apps, was designed to help launch “venture-scalable startups.”
The startup is led by co-founder Dae Kim, who is based in Seattle, and previously worked as a corporate strategy manager at Microsoft focused on AI and as a consumer packaged goods strategy consultant at L.E.K. Consulting. He’s joined by David Lee, who is based in New York, and most recently was co-founder and engineering lead at Seek AI and was a senior software engineer at Oracle.
The company aims to help business teams at CPG companies access data and generate analysis. CPG data is fragmented and siloed in sources such as NielsenIQ and IRI, forcing business teams to manually download files and sift through data, according to the company.
NoxuData sells an AI platform with a conversational dashboard interface for answering queries and visualization. It also provides insights that go beyond financial metrics, considering evolving context such as foot traffic, website visits, or even weather alerts.
For instance, users can ask why sales are slowing in southern California, receiving a context-driven response to help drive decision-making. It also has an added layer of quality assurance through human monitoring for answers it deems low confidence.
The company estimates the market opportunity to be $10 billion in the U.S. The startup has five customers, mostly startups, with three as paid pilots. It has raised and undisclosed amount of capital from Gold House Ventures and other incubators.
NoxuData competes with startups like Seek AI, along with incumbents such as Snowflake and Salesforce.
“How we win is by building our flywheel through our focus in the CPG vertical and by building human trust,” Kim said during the startup’s pitch during Demo Day on Sunday. He added that the company’s extra layer of quality assurance through human monitoring will help customers have confidence in the AI platform’s output.
The event was judged by Rajko Radovanovic (partner at a16z), Tina Hoang-To (founding general partner at Kin Ventures), and Jon Turow (partner at Madrona).
The Launchable event, the seventh hosted by Seattle-based startup studio Madrona Venture Labs, featured more than 40 mentors, 50 founders across 11 teams, and over 100 investors that signed up to attend the demo day in person and via live stream.
Last year’s Launchable winner was Storia AI, which is developing generative artificial intelligence tools for filmmakers and TV show producers plugged into its model. Seattle-based engineering productivity startup UpLevel also won a past competition; the company last year raised $20 million in venture capital funding.
Madrona Venture Labs earlier this year raised $11 million for its fifth fund.
