Narrator
Narrator is a privately held, New York-based AI-powered data analytics platform founded in 2017 by Ahmed Elsamadisi. It serves business customers with analytics built on artificial intelligence and has raised approximately $13.6M from Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, and others.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1999
- HeadquartersNew York, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Narrator does
Narrator is a privately held AI-powered data analytics platform founded in 2017 and headquartered in New York, United States. The company operates with an employee base in the 11-50 range and positions its product around applying artificial intelligence to data analytics workflows for its customers.
The company was founded by Ahmed Elsamadisi (CEO), alongside co-founders Cedric Dussud and Michael Nason (Head of Engineering). Narrator has raised approximately $13.6 million in cumulative disclosed funding across four rounds spanning October 2017 through September 2020, with investors including Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, Flybridge, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Panache Ventures. The company's primary website is narratordata.com.
Per the input data, Narrator's stated product is a data analytics platform built on AI technology; no further technical architecture, specific product modules, pricing tiers, customer segments, or go-to-market channels are disclosed in the provided material. The company does not appear to have publicly disclosed revenue, customer logos, patents, or detailed AI capabilities. No recent post-2020 strategic signals — including additional funding rounds, product launches, geographic expansion, or leadership changes — are documented in the input, limiting assessment of current operating momentum.
Note: The detailed scraped content from narratordata.com describes the website as the online home of the "Listen Up! Hub," a UK-based charitable community journalism project operated by Groundswell and funded by Comic Relief. This content materially conflicts with the firmographic description of Narrator as a US-based for-profit AI analytics company; per conflict-resolution rules, the first-party structured firmographic, funding, and leadership data have been preferred as the authoritative basis for this analysis.
Narrator firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Narrator
- Legal name
- Groundswell (operates Listen Up! Hub as narratordata.com)
- Website
- https://narratordata.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1999
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Narrator is a privately held, New York-based AI-powered data analytics platform founded in 2017 by Ahmed Elsamadisi. It serves business customers with analytics built on artificial intelligence and has raised approximately $13.6M from Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, and others.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Narrator industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Data Analytics Platform
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (513210), Software Publishers (5132)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Data Storytelling & Collaborative Analytics (HDAEAMAJ)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Business Intelligence, Reporting & Visualization Services (BPAEAHAD)
Keywords
Where Narrator is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- New York
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
Narrator business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels3 records
Narrator product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Narrator is an AI-powered data analytics platform founded in 2017 that enables companies to consolidate, model, and analyze business data. The platform uses artificial intelligence to automate data transformation and analytics workflows, allowing data teams to derive insights without manual pipeline engineering.
Product overview
The narratordata.com website is the 'Listen Up! Hub' - a content platform run by Groundswell, a homelessness charity. The site publishes blog articles and reports written by community reporters with lived experience of homelessness. It is not a technology product or SaaS company.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Narrator Analytics Platform
Quantifiable outcome
- Reporter participation in Red Nose Day podcast with Prince William on BBC
Companies that use Narrator
Customer profileSegments1 record
Ideal customer profiles1 record
Narrator technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Narrator partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Nine partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.
- BBCflagshipBBC collaborated with Listen Up! to produce a podcast and film for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day Appeal. Two of Listen Up's reporters (Miles and Nawshin) met Prince William and discussed their experiences of homelessness and his plans to help end homelessness. The BBC and Comic Relief demonstrated impressive progressive safeguarding concerns and techniques throughout the production.
- Comic ReliefflagshipComic Relief funded the three-year Listen Up! project and collaborated on the Red Nose Day Appeal film and podcast featuring reporters meeting Prince William. The partnership enabled meaningful media exposure for homeless journalists and their stories.
- On Our RadarcoreOn Our Radar partnered with Groundswell to deliver the Listen Up! project, providing infrastructure and support for community reporting. The project will be archived online upon completion in September 2024.
- Arch HealthcareminorArch Healthcare employed the project manager for the Brighton and Hove Common Ambition project, contributing to the health and homeless system improvement initiative.
- JustlifeminorJustlife provided a participation lead for the Brighton and Hove Common Ambition project, supporting co-production approaches with individuals with lived experience of homelessness.
- Brighton UniversityminorBrighton University contributed a team including a principal investigator and social policy expert, a community psychologist, a sociologist, and a historian of housing to the Brighton and Hove Common Ambition project.
- BMSKI (Hungary)minorBMSKI hosted a learning event in Budapest as part of an Erasmus+ funded project focused on sharing learning on how best to support older people experiencing homelessness, with partners from Ireland, Italy, and Hungary.
- Gypsy Traveller LeagueminorAndrea Gilbert was hired through the Gypsy Traveller League to advocate on behalf of and support Irish Traveller families experiencing housing issues and potential eviction.
- Greater Manchester Law CentreminorLegal aid organization that provided civil legal services and successful Breathing Space application support for an Irish Traveller family facing eviction, demonstrating effective partnership with community advocacy efforts.
Scale indicators1 record
Recent moves4 records
Expansion highlights3 records
Narrator competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Mode Analytics: Mode is a collaborative analytics platform that combines SQL, Python, and visual storytelling — the closest direct peer to Narrator's data analytics and storytelling positioning.
- Hex: Hex provides AI-augmented notebooks and collaborative data analytics for data teams, directly overlapping with Narrator's AI-driven analytics offering.
- Sigma Computing: Sigma offers a spreadsheet-native cloud BI and analytics platform, competing for the same self-serve data storytelling narrative that Narrator pursues.
- ThoughtSpot: ThoughtSpot is an AI-powered analytics platform with natural-language search and AI-driven insights, directly competing with Narrator in the AI-analytics category.
- dbt Labs: dbt Labs is the analytics engineering standard and complements/challenges Narrator in the modern data stack where collaborative data modeling is central.
Broad incumbents
- Looker: Looker (Google Cloud) is an enterprise BI platform with embedded analytics and modeling — a broader incumbent whose capabilities overlap Narrator's storytelling use cases at much greater scale.
- Tableau: Tableau (Salesforce) is the dominant legacy BI and visualization incumbent with heavy enterprise penetration, posing a broad competitive threat to Narrator's category.
- Power BI: Microsoft Power BI is the volume leader in BI with aggressive AI-feature rollouts (Copilot), representing a bundled-incumbent threat to Narrator's AI-analytics positioning.
- Snowflake: Snowflake's data cloud and Cortex AI offerings increasingly encroach on the analytics/insights layer that Narrator targets, making it an indirect but powerful competitor.
Emerging players
- Amplitude: Amplitude provides product analytics with embedded AI insights for non-technical users — a comparable AI-augmented analytics model to Narrator's user-experience philosophy.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat3 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights5 records
Customer concentration
Narrator social profiles
Digital presenceNarrator financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Narrator leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
Narrator funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds4 records
Investors5 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Narrator M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Narrator
What does Narrator do?
Narrator is an AI-powered data analytics platform founded in 2017 that enables companies to consolidate, model, and analyze business data. The platform uses artificial intelligence to automate data transformation and analytics workflows, allowing data teams to derive insights without manual pipeline engineering.
Is Narrator a public or private company?
Narrator is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Narrator founded?
Narrator was founded in 1999. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Narrator based?
Narrator is headquartered in New York, United States, in the North America region.
Who are Narrator's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Mode Analytics, Hex, Sigma Computing, ThoughtSpot and dbt Labs. Broad incumbents are Looker, Tableau, Power BI and Snowflake. Amplitude is listed as an emerging player.
Does Narrator have an API?
No public API is recorded for Narrator.
What industry is Narrator in?
Narrator's product category is Data Analytics Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEAMAJ, Data Storytelling & Collaborative Analytics, with a secondary code of BPAEAHAD, Business Intelligence, Reporting & Visualization Services. Its NAICS code is 513210 and its SIC code is 7372.