The archive · AI & Models · Strategic decision · 2025–2026
Intellicia bets synthetic consumers replace research panels; Kakao Ventures leads ₩3.4B
Ex-Dable founder trains AI on real shopper data to answer brand surveys in hours; 130+ Korean CPG projects and an oversubscribed ₩3.4B pre-A.
Intellicia
What the business is
Intellicia operates TheSurvey.ai, an AI research platform whose synthetic consumers — hundreds of thousands of virtual people trained on real consumer data — answer surveys and interviews in hours, plus ParaStore, a digital-twin store where synthetic consumers shop.
Starting capital：₩3.4B pre-Series A led by Kakao Ventures with Murex Partners and Capstone Partners; founder Baek Seung-kuk also invested (announced 2026-09-02)
How it started
Baek Seung-kuk co-founded Dable, a news AI-personalization company that ran services across seven Asian countries and was sold to Yanolja in 2021. In February 2025 he founded Intellicia with former Dable members to commercialize synthetic consumer technology — what the company describes as the first such commercialization in Asia — betting that AI trained on real consumer data could stand in for panels recruited from thousands of people.
What happened
Intellicia's engine reproduced an average of over 90% of real consumer survey responses in recall verification, and the platform accumulated more than 130 customer projects and PoCs with Korean majors including CJ CheilJedang, Pulmuone, Lotte Wellfood, Fursys Group, LG Uplus and BGF Retail — over 200 cases in the first half of 2026. The September 2026 pre-Series A of ₩3.4B, oversubscribed against a ₩3B target, was led by Kakao Ventures, which had backed Baek's earlier Dable for roughly a decade; Murex Partners and Capstone Partners joined, and Baek personally invested. The funds target pushing recall toward 95% on multinational panels, launching a global SaaS platform in Q4 2026, and entering the US and Japan in 2027, while ParaStore heads into testing with BGF Retail's CU convenience-store chain.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Intellicia, founded in February 2025 by Baek Seung-kuk, sells AI-generated consumers to companies that run consumer research. Its platform TheSurvey.ai trains AI on real consumer data to produce hundreds of thousands of 'synthetic consumers' who answer survey and interview questions, compressing research that once took weeks or months of panel recruitment into a few hours — and making it repeatable whenever conditions change.
Baek had previously co-founded Dable, a news AI-personalization company active in seven Asian countries, sold to Yanolja in 2021. Kakao Ventures, which had backed Dable for about a decade, led Intellicia pre-Series A of ₩3.4B, oversubscribed against a ₩3B target, with Murex Partners and Capstone Partners joining and Baek personally investing. It logged 130+ customer projects and PoCs with Korean majors CJ CheilJedang, Pulmuone, Lotte Wellfood, Fursys Group, LG Uplus and BGF Retail, with more than 60% converting to annual contracts.
The technical claim behind the business is recall: Intellicia says its engine averages over 90% in matching synthetic-consumer responses to real survey results, and it plans to push that toward 95% for panels in other countries. The funds support a global SaaS launch in Q4 2026, entry into US and Japanese research markets next year, and ParaStore, a digital-twin store where synthetic consumers shop, which is preparing for testing with BGF Retail's CU convenience stores.
What has to be true
- Baek had already built and sold Dable, so Kakao Ventures was funding a proven operator with a roughly ten-year relationship rather than an unproven team.
- Measured evidence preceded the round: over 90% recall of real survey responses and more than 60% PoC-to-annual-contract conversion gave investors numbers instead of promises.
- Anchor customers among Korean consumer-goods giants made synthetic consumers a credible replacement for panel research, not a lab experiment.
- The roadmap widened the wedge — TheSurvey.ai for research and ParaStore for store simulation — while keeping one trained-consumer engine underneath both products.
What can be applied
Replace an existing paid process: synthetic panels are priced against what brands already spend on research, so PoC-to-contract conversion, not hype, carried the round.
Aftermath
As of September 2, 2026, Intellicia is live with paying annual contracts from Korean consumer-goods and retail customers, and has just closed an oversubscribed ₩3.4B pre-Series A led by Kakao Ventures. It plans a global SaaS launch in Q4 2026 and US/Japan entry next year, shifting from project-based sales toward subscriptions. Alongside research, it is building ParaStore with BGF Retail to simulate store operations, aiming to become a decision-making platform that explores and simulates consumer demand rather than only running surveys.
Sources
- Intellicia raises 3.4 billion won in pre-Series A funding for synthetic consumer AI research platform
- Reducing consumer research from months to hours… Intellicia secures 3.4 billion won in Pre-A funding
- Kakao Ventures Invests in Intellicia, an AI Synthetic-Consumer Technology Startup
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