What Highlight does

Highlight is a product intelligence platform that runs in-home usage testing (IHUT) end-to-end for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, bundling recruiting, physical fulfillment, in-home data collection, and AI-powered analysis into a single SaaS workflow. The company's core technology combines a curated 60,000+ member consumer panel with turnkey logistics, including FDA-certified repackaging, blinding, and cold-chain shipping, and an analytics layer that delivers decision-ready consumer feedback in under 14 days from kickoff. Its proprietary Highlight AI co-pilot runs on foundation models accessed through AWS Bedrock and performs generative summarization, NLP-based topic and sentiment tagging, predictive analytics such as Penalty Analysis and Alienation Analysis, and recommendation-based audience matching against the vetted tester community. The platform is organized into five modules: Highlight AI, Survey Builder (160+ expert templates, 17 question types), Insights Suite (live dashboards with crosstabs, scorecards, and exportable reports), the Community panel, and Turnkey logistics.

The company serves primarily enterprise CPG innovation teams across food and beverage, personal care and beauty, household goods, apparel and footwear, alcohol and NA beverages, and adjacent categories including kids/baby, pet care, and healthcare retail. Named customers include Nestlé, P&G, Colgate, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mondelēz, Kraft Heinz, Kimberly-Clark, L'Oréal, Clorox, Mars, Hanes, and CVS Health, alongside mid-market and SMB brands such as Spindrift, Liquid Death, King's Hawaiian, and LOLA. Go-to-market combines direct enterprise field sales through consultative demo sessions with a self-serve platform layer supported by sample-size, statistical significance, and ROI calculators. Pricing is project-based and not publicly disclosed, bundling recruiting, logistics, and analytics into per-study fees; operational metrics reported by the company include 90%+ completion rates (vs. ~70% industry average), 1-2% junk data (vs. 30% industry average), and ~3 weeks from recruit to final results.

The business is privately held and venture-backed, founded in 2021 with operations based in New York, USA, and a workforce of 101-250 employees. Disclosed funding totals approximately $26 million through a 2023 Series A led by Acre Venture Partners and HearstLab, with an additional Khosla Ventures-led round in March 2026 framed around building a 'collective intelligence layer for the agentic age.' Recognition includes Fast Company Most Innovative Companies (2024), GRIT Top 50 Most Innovative (2025), Quirk's Media Top IHUT, GreenBook Startup of the Year (2022), G2 'Users Love Us,' and NMSDC Certified Minority-Owned status. In 2026, the product roadmap has accelerated with launches of an AI-generated Summary tab, customizable analytics (Median-in-Crosstabs, segmentable Alienation, longitudinal Penalty Analysis), and shareable survey exports, indicating an active pivot from standalone IHUT tooling toward a broader AI-native research intelligence platform.

Name

Highlight

Legal name

Highlight

Website

https://letshighlight.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Highlight is an AI-powered product intelligence platform that runs in-home usage testing end-to-end for CPG brands, combining a 60,000+ vetted tester panel, turnkey logistics, and AI-driven analytics to deliver consumer feedback in days.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Consumer Market Research Software

NAICS

Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (54191)

SIC

Services-Advertising (7310)

akta.pro primary industry

Sampling & Product Trial Programs (BPAFAMAH)

Keywords

• Consumer product testing
• Market research software
• Consumer insights platform
• Product intelligence platform
• In-home usage testing

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Product Testing Studies: Highlight charges brands for end-to-end in-home usage testing studies. Pricing appears to be project-based, varying by sample size, study complexity, and logistics requirements. The company handles recruiting, shipping, analysis, and reporting as part of the service.
2. Logistics and Fulfillment Services: Integrated logistics handling including cold chain shipping, blinding/repackaging, and distribution for physical product testing. These services are bundled into study pricing but represent a distinct operational capability.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Highlight provides an AI-powered product intelligence platform that runs end-to-end in-home product testing (IHUT) and adjacent consumer research studies for CPG brands. The offering combines an owned consumer community of vetted testers, programmable Survey Builder tooling, AI-driven analysis via Highlight AI, an Insights Suite, and integrated Turnkey Logistics including cold-chain shipping for physical product samples. Customers can launch studies in under 14 days from kickoff and receive AI-generated insights back from in-home tester data.

Product overview

Highlight is a product intelligence platform organized as a core SaaS platform complemented by integrated modules and study-type offerings. The core platform (Highlight) orchestrates the entire IHUT (In-Home Usage Testing) workflow — recruiting, logistics, data collection, and analysis — within a single dashboard. It is extended by five named platform modules: Highlight AI (AI co-pilot for study design and analysis), Survey builder (questionnaire construction with 160+ templates), Insights Suite (live analytics and reporting), Community panel (60,000+ vetted consumer testers), and Turnkey logistics (end-to-end product fulfillment including cold chain). The platform supports multiple study types across the full product lifecycle (Explore, Prototype, Validate, Understand, Optimize, Expand), including IHUT, concept testing, sensory/taste testing, claims substantiation, competitive benchmarking, package testing, alienation analysis, and audience profiling. The system is used by major CPG brands including Nestlé, P&G, Colgate, Unilever, Coca-Cola, and L'Oréal.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Highlight Platform End-to-end AI-powered product intelligence platform for CPG brands that combines an owned consumer community of vetted testers, a Survey Builder, Highlight AI, and an Insights Suite to run in-home product testing and adjacent consumer research studies end-to-end, with kickoff-to-insights timelines of under 14 days.
• Highlight AI AI-powered analysis engine that ingests consumer research data from Highlight studies and produces synthesized insights, summaries, and reporting for CPG insights and product innovation teams.
• Community Panel (Highlighters) Owned consumer community panel (branded "Highlighters") of vetted testers used to recruit participants for in-home product testing and adjacent consumer research studies conducted on the Highlight platform.
• Turnkey Logistics Managed logistics and fulfillment service that handles warehousing, kitting, and shipping of physical product samples, including refrigerated and frozen goods via cold-chain capability, directly from brands to consumer testers' homes.

Quantifiable outcome

• 90%+ survey completion rate (vs. ~70% industry average)
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers26 records

Segments7 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability6 records

Feature5 records

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Suzy: Suzy is an AI-powered consumer insights platform providing on-demand survey-based research to enterprise brands. It directly competes with Highlight in the CPG/consumer brand insights space with a self-serve research model targeting similar buyer personas.
• Toluna: Toluna operates a global consumer panel and insights platform used by CPG and enterprise brands for survey-based research. It is a direct competitor to Highlight in panel-driven consumer research with comparable enterprise customers.
• Dynata: Dynata is one of the world's largest first-party data and insights platforms, combining consumer panels with research tooling for enterprise clients. It competes with Highlight across CPG research, panel access, and analytics delivery.
• Cint: Cint operates a global research panel exchange and consumer insights platform used by brands and research agencies. It is comparable to Highlight as a panel-and-insights infrastructure provider serving CPG and consumer research buyers.
• Prolific: Prolific is an online participant recruitment and research platform offering vetted participant pools for academic and commercial research. It is comparable to Highlight's panel and survey-driven research workflow, though with a broader research audience including academia.

Emerging players

• Discuss.io: Discuss.io is a qualitative research platform offering live video interviews, focus groups, and asynchronous research for enterprise brands. It overlaps with Highlight's qualitative research use cases (in-home usage, concept testing) while focusing on video-first methodologies.
• Outset: Outset is an AI-moderated research platform that conducts and synthesizes qualitative interviews autonomously. It is an emerging direct competitor to Highlight AI's qualitative analysis capabilities, particularly for concept and in-depth consumer feedback.

Broad incumbents

• NielsenIQ: NielsenIQ is a global consumer intelligence and measurement giant serving CPG manufacturers and retailers with panel data, retail measurement, and insights. It competes with Highlight at the same enterprise CPG buyers, with broader data assets and longer-tenured client relationships.
• Kantar: Kantar is one of the world's largest market research and consumer insights firms, deeply embedded with global CPG brands. It competes with Highlight for the same innovation and insights budgets, with broader portfolio of tracking, panel, and qualitative services.
• Ipsos: Ipsos is a global market research and consulting firm with deep CPG client relationships and a wide portfolio spanning consumer insights, advertising research, and public opinion. It overlaps with Highlight's CPG innovation and consumer testing offerings as a broad incumbent.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/letshighlight
• Facebookfacebook.com/highlightcommunity
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/letshighlight

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds4 records

Investors10 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Highlight