A Covington-based tech startup that counts Walmart as one of its biggest customers has raised new capital amid an ongoing business pivot that’s picking up steam.
Nichefire, which is building an artificial intelligence-powered platform to help companies understand and predict the impact of emerging cultural trends, closed a pre-seed round in July with participation from Indianapolis- and Cincinnati-based Allos Ventures; Keyhorse Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in Kentucky companies; and Bluegrass Angels, a Lexington-based angel investing group.
The funding amount was not disclosed.
Michael Howard, Nichefire's founder, CEO and chief technology officer, told me the raise will allow the company to launch a new platform, TrendFire, considered the first self-service predictive cultural intelligence solution powered by generative AI.
TrendFire, which is currently being tested by select users, offers customers “unparalleled insights” into consumer, political, economic and societal trends, he said.
Those insights are being used by Walmart and other Fortune 500 firms.
Howard said the company has also built out a sales pipeline of $4 million to $5 million ahead of TrendFire’s broader release.
“We’ve been able to really refine our approach and have gained some great traction,” he said. “We’ve helped several clients understand how their brands are seen, what sustainability issues they should be addressing and also where to defend their brand and which narratives to prioritize. When it comes to opportunities, it’s the marketing or content strategies you should be thinking about. These insights can shape the way you make brand activations or products. Brands always complain that by the time something happens, they’re not quick enough to jump on it. That’s another area we’ve been working to address."
Howard, along with co-founders Khalil El-Amin and Steven Brown, launched Nichefire in 2018. The company originally focused on offering competitive analysis tools using AI, focusing heavily on the financial sector.
The company started its pivot a year and a half ago. “We couldn’t get the traction we were looking for before,” he said. “The pain point wasn’t painful enough.”
Nichefire is now looking to pinpoint “real cultural moments and opportunities,” he said.
When consumers share, talk and convene online, the platform picks up on those signals and helps companies understand that dialogue when forming use cases or deciding when to innovate products.
John McIlwraith, co-founder and managing director at Allos Ventures, said the company essentially takes the "search" out of research by identifying trends and topics and predicting the future of those trends using the latest in AI.
“To derive insights into culture with current solutions you have to know ahead of time what to look for,” McIlwraith told me. “(Nichefire) has found teams are either spending 80 to 100-plus hours per month on simple projects for this or attempting to build something with consultants, which can be very expensive and end up being a one-off solution …. or extremely complicated and mostly inferior social listening tools.”
Howard’s work has recently earned recognition from the Social Intelligence Lab, a Glasgow, Scotland-based professional membership group. He was named a top 50 most influential leader in the social intelligence space earlier this year. The list also includes executives from Microsoft, Mattel and the Walt Disney Co.
The recognition “highlights Nichefire's leadership role in the industry and reflects the company’s relentless pursuit of innovation,” according to a news release.
Currently, Nichefire is a team of five. The company made the move from Norwood's Alloy, formerly HCDC, to Covington earlier this year. "Kentucky has a lot of benefits for small businesses," Howard said.
In conjunction with the raise, Nichefire has added Dave Knox, currently the executive director for Blue North, a Northern Kentucky-based entrepreneurship support organization, to its board.
Knox co-founded Procter & Gamble’s corporate digital strategy team and served as chief marketing officer of marketing agency Rockfish, which was later acquired by WPP.
Howard said Knox will provide insights to help shape the company’s strategic direction.
Nichefire is also donating a portion of its equity to the Northern Kentucky Entrepreneur Fund, established earlier this year by Blue North and Horizon Community Funds. The program – in part – awards grants to startups or small businesses specifically in Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties.
