Funds for New Consumer Insights Tech Firm Horizon

In Germany, recently launched consumer insights and research tech firm Horizon has raised $1.4m as part of a pre-seed funding round. In addition, Annie Melnic, previously Head of Consumer Insights for Outdoor Sports at adidas, has joined the company as Head of Data Analytics & Insights.

Founded at the end of last year by Daniel Putsche and Lutz Petrean, Mainz-based Horizon offers testing software integrating consumer behavioural data for incognito testing, concept and product analysis, landing page insights, and customer demand testing. This software is designed to help innovation, product and consumer insight teams quantitatively research overall market demand, product positioning, price acceptance and brand fit for product decisions.

The firm's pre-seed funding round was led by Catapult Analytics, whose directors include Andy Wing, the former CEO of Nielsen Entertainment, and Henry Piney, former MD of MarketCast International; in addition to Investitions- und Strukturbank Rheinland-Pfalz, and other business angels. Piney says Horizon is supplementing existing research solutions with an 'innovative tech-enabled approach', which then integrates real behavioural data into advance decision making.

Separately, Melnic (pictured) joins after more than six years at adidas in Germany, where she helped develop a qualitative analytics toolkit, and digitized consumer insights for the company's Outdoor business unit. Putsche comments: Annie will be instrumental in helping us ensure that clients, across all industries can generate valuable insights for their strategic product decisions. Her experience in the analytics and consumer acquisition space combined with her consumer insights expertise represents a 'best blend' for us.'

Web site: www.gethorizon.net .