Spate, which uses search data to provide insight into beauty and food trends, has raised $1.8 million.
The funding round was led by Initialized Capital, and includes Y Combinator, Kima Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures and Avrhm Capital.
Spate was founded by Yarden Horowitz and Olivier Zimmer as a consumer intelligence service. The company uses machine-learning to track what people are searching and predict product trends.
In a category like foundations, for instance, Spate can go through granular data to see everything from which brands are the most searched to what questions people are asking related to foundations. Using that information, the firm aims to predict beauty trends.
Recent data shared with WWD showed a rise in procedures, including eyelash extensions, dermaplaning, hydrafacials, cheek fillers and Botox. Tinted moisturizer searches were also up, but lip-product searches were down, Spate's data showed.
Horowitz and Zimmer are ex-Google employees who started the company's trend-spotting division, handling reports around food and beauty trends. With Spate, the pair are hoping to help companies reduce launch failures — a market it estimates at $110 billion annually.
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