Funds for Forecaster Simporter as Mitch Barns Joins Board

US-based Simporter, which uses artificial intelligence to predict consumer demand for new products, has raised $600k in a seed round of growth funding. The investment came from several investors, including former Nielsen CEO Mitch Barns, who has joined the firm's Advisory Board.

Founded by Tim and Dillon Hall, Atlanta, Georgia-based Simporter offers an AI-based software platform through which retailers and manufacturers can predict sales for consumer products before they go to market. Through the analysis of billions of data points from point-of-sales, social media sentiment and customer reviews, the platform can help sales and marketing managers identify which products to promote and which to drop.

New funding was led by European accelerator Startup Wise Guys, as well as a number of other angel investors. Barns (pictured) joins the Advisory Board after a career which included twenty years at Nielsen, the last five of which were spent as CEO. He currently sits on the Board of automated ad and innovation testing platform Zappi, consumer brand agency The Stable and the Global Leadership Network, and he also serves on the Advisory Board of private equity firm Catalyst Partners. In addition, Barns operates Second Half Advisors, a firm he founded in 2019 to advise and support businesses and non-profits.

The co-founders said that the firm is grateful to its investors for this capital, which it will use to further accelerate company growth, adding: 'We're delighted to have Mitch on our board. His expertise will greatly help our mission to empower brands and retailers with AI-driven analytics, so they can thrive in today's volatile markets.'

Web site: www.simporter.com .