What MakerSights does

MakerSights is a privately held San Francisco-based software company founded in 2015 that builds an AI-powered consumer research platform for enterprise retail brands. The company serves apparel, footwear, and accessories companies — including named customers Hoka, Reebok, Ralph Lauren, Madewell, and Adidas — by embedding consumer data into product creation, assortment planning, and go-to-market workflows. Its platform is organized around three sub-brands: MakerLabs (AI-driven synthetic consumer research using proprietary Digital Twin panels that enable testing of 100% of a product line in hours), Organic Research (high-touch traditional consumer research combined with retail advisor expertise delivering insights in 2-3 days), and Product Calendar (workflow tooling aligned with seasonal product development milestones). The underlying technology combines statistical modeling, machine learning, large language models, and multimodal AI to process text, image, and structured survey data, including AI-generated product design variations for in-showroom buyer testing.

The company operates a B2B enterprise sales motion targeting C-suite and VP-level buyers (Chief Merchandising Officers, Product Directors) at major brands via a consultative, high-touch field sales model. Revenue is generated through three streams: annual subscription SaaS contracts (with 8% annual price escalation on renewal), professional services delivered by retail advisors, and usage-based overage charges tied to SKU volume and user counts. Pricing is Order Form-based and not publicly disclosed. Geographic footprint spans the United States and United Kingdom with multi-market testing capability supporting consistent cross-country consumer research via automated translation.

MakerSights has raised approximately $36.6M in disclosed venture funding across rounds from 2015 through August 2021, with the $25M Series A led by G2 Venture Partners and including Forerunner, Baseline Ventures, Bossa Invest, Gaingels, and Golub Capital. The company operates with 51-100 employees and is led by co-founder and CEO Dan Leahy and co-founder Matt Field. No subsequent funding rounds, acquisitions, or leadership changes are disclosed in the available data, and no revenue figures are publicly reported.

Name

MakerSights

Legal name

MakerSights, Inc.

Website

https://makersights.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

MakerSights is an AI-powered consumer research platform that helps apparel, footwear, and accessories brands validate 100% of their product line using proprietary Digital Twin panels and high-touch retail advisory services from concept through market launch.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Subscription SaaS Platform Access: Annual subscription model granting access to the MakerSights consumer research platform, survey tools, analytics, and dashboards. Subscription terms with automatic renewal, subject to 8% annual price increase.
2. Retail Advisory Services: High-touch consulting services from retail advisors providing expertise in product creation, line development, and go-to-market processes. Delivers packaged insights within 2-3 days.
3. Usage-Based Testing: Additional charges may apply for exceeding usage limits specified in Order Forms, including volume of SKU testing or number of authorized users.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

MakerSights provides an AI-powered consumer research and assortment management platform that combines high-touch retail advisory services with always-on synthetic research (via Digital Twins) and traditional survey-based research. The platform enables apparel, footwear, and accessories brands to validate 100% of their product line — rather than a 10–20% sample — across every stage from seasonal kickoff to final line adoption, delivering consumer insights in hours or 2–3 days.

Product overview

MakerSights is a unified retail intelligence platform offering two complementary research methodologies: MakerLabs (AI-powered synthetic consumer research using Digital Twins for rapid, always-on product testing at scale) and Organic Research (high-touch traditional consumer research with expert advisory services). Both offerings share the core MakerSights Platform, which provides analytics, dashboards, and data visualization tools. The Product Calendar module supports planning and tracking of research activities. The platform is designed for apparel, footwear, and accessories brands seeking to validate 100% of their product line — moving beyond testing only the top 20% of concepts. Research Reports are published as content outputs sharing aggregated industry insights.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• MakerLabs: AI-powered product testing and validation platform that enables brands to test entire product lines in hours.
• Organic Research
• Product Calendar

Products and services

• MakerSights Platform Unified AI-powered consumer research, analytics, and data visualization platform that enables apparel, footwear, and accessories brands to make confident product, investment, and go-to-market decisions by embedding consumer insights across the product creation workflow.
• MakerLabs AI-powered synthetic consumer research offering that uses Digital Twins — pre-trained synthetic consumer panels — to enable rapid, always-on testing of products, concepts, and design variations, delivering insights in hours without traditional research recruitment.
• Organic Research Traditional consumer research offering that combines high-touch expert advisory services with survey-based data collection for validating product decisions, concept testing, and go-to-market strategy support at key seasonal milestones.
• Product Calendar Product planning and calendar tool that supports the retail product creation workflow, enabling brands to plan and track research activities aligned with seasonal product development and line adoption timelines.

Quantifiable outcome

• Moved from testing 20% to testing 100% of product line
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability8 records

Feature5 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• EDITED: EDITED provides retail analytics and competitive intelligence for fashion and apparel brands, tracking pricing, assortment, and product performance across competitors. It overlaps with MakerSights' assortment management and market intelligence use cases for apparel and footwear buyers.
• First Insight: First Insight is a SaaS platform that uses consumer insights and predictive analytics to help retailers and brands make product, pricing, and assortment decisions. It is the closest direct competitor to MakerSights, serving the same apparel and footwear customer base with voice-of-customer and AI-driven product testing.
• Trendalytics: Trendalytics offers AI-powered trend forecasting and consumer demand prediction for fashion retailers and brands. It is comparable to MakerSights as a retail-focused AI analytics platform supporting merchandising and product planning decisions.
• StyleSage: StyleSage is a retail analytics platform providing fashion brands with competitive assortment, pricing, and product intelligence. It overlaps with MakerSights' assortment management and market benchmarking capabilities in apparel and footwear.
• Attest: Attest is a consumer research platform enabling brands to run fast, self-service surveys against a national consumer panel. It competes with MakerSights' Organic Research offering for budget-conscious brand insights teams in retail and CPG.
• Suzy: Suzy is a consumer insights platform that connects brands directly to a panel of consumers for real-time research on product concepts, advertising, and brand strategy. Like MakerSights, Suzy targets enterprise CPG and retail buyers with an always-on research offering.

Broad incumbents

• Qualtrics: Qualtrics is a broad experience management platform used for customer, employee, and product experience research. While not retail-specialized, it competes for the same enterprise research budgets as MakerSights and offers adjacent survey and analytics capabilities.
• WGSN: WGSN is a leading trend forecasting and consumer insight service for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle industries. It is comparable as a subscription intelligence service for apparel and accessories brands but focuses on macro trend prediction rather than SKU-level testing.
• NielsenIQ: NielsenIQ is a large-scale consumer data and retail measurement provider with deep relationships across CPG and retail. It competes with MakerSights at the buyer level for consumer insights spend, though its focus is on market measurement rather than product-level concept testing.

Others

• Coresight Research: Coresight Research is a retail and consumer research advisory firm producing syndicated research and consulting. It is an adjacent player rather than a direct software competitor but competes for the same retail insights budget pool MakerSights targets.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/makersights
• Facebookfacebook.com/makersights
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/makersights
• Instagraminstagram.com/makersights

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds5 records

Investors8 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 MakerSights