Riga-based market intelligence platform Rival Sense has raised an undisclosed amount in an angel round led by Change Ventures, with participation from Fiedler Capital and local business angels. The funds will be used for user acquisition and product development.
RivalSense allows users to track competitor pricing, product changes, new hires, regulatory issues, customers, suppliers, tech stacks, regulatory challenges, media mentions, and company filings. Sources of information include competitor websites, social media accounts, financial filings, and business databases.
The company was founded by serial entrepreneurs Martin Vivers and Arturs Priditis, two Techstars alumni who have now founded several machine learning companies together. Vivers is an Oxford University graduate who previously worked at data visualization startup Infogrames, while Priditis is a Cambridge University graduate who has held engineering roles at Qualcomm and HP Autonomy.
“A week after launch, our users learned through insights that one of our toughest competitors had quietly removed the logo of an important client from its website. The user immediately sent this to their sales team. The following week, the same user saw an insight showing that a senior engineer at a competitor had finished his employment on LinkedIn and was ready to accept a job offer,” Prieditis says. “That was a big 'aha' moment for us. We realized that what we were doing with these insights was adding huge value.”
Vivers added: “We're avid readers of tech and politics newsletters, so it only makes sense that a beautiful weekly email or Slack update is the best way to communicate competitive insights. Executives and founders are incredibly busy people, and the last thing they need is another app or platform to log into. Recent advances in AI mean we can now not only notice competitor events, but assess their business significance and communicate insights rather than a list of random keyword links.”
“Having followed these two experienced and tenacious founders for several years, we are excited to support RivalSense,” said Andris K. Berzins, Partner at Change Ventures. “I have seen so many competitive intelligence solutions over the years, all of which ended up being enterprise-focused and ultimately unscalable consulting businesses. The RivalSense team's vision sets them apart in their industry by targeting small and medium-sized businesses with a scalable, cost-effective solution.”
