Member Article

Relative Insight Adds New Board Members, Kristin Luck and Richard Thornton

Leading text analysis company will work with Luck and Thornton to continue its expansion, whilst helping companies to get the most value out of their data

Relative Insight, a comparative text analytics software company with an office in Lancaster, has engaged two new board members following a £5m investment backed by private equity firm YFM Equity Partners (YFM) in March 2022 which was led by the firm’s Manchester team. Kristin Luck has joined the Advisory Board and Richard Thornton has joined the company’s Board of Directors. Both will focus on company growth and help to scale the business for continued international expansion.

“Our growth has recently accelerated sharply; driven by demand from companies seeking to get more value out of their text data and helped by our recently announced Series A funding,” said Ben Hookway, CEO of Relative Insight. “Kristin and Richard both have deep industry knowledge and experience when it comes to quickly scaling high-growth technology companies. We are looking forward to tapping into their expertise as we continue to expand, with a focus on the United States.”

Luck, a serial technology entrepreneur, is the founder and managing partner of ScaleHouse, a growth advisory firm for technology and services companies in the insights and analytics sector. She will work closely with the company’s executive team to uncover expansion opportunities for Relative Insight’s offerings in the market research and marketing industries. She will also help to guide the company’s growth strategy in the United States, following the company’s recent investment from YFM.

Thornton, previously of Cint’s executive team which led the company to a successful IPO, now heads up an advisory and services firm working with tech-enabled, high-growth companies to help them to realise their potential. At Relative Insight, he will be focusing on sales efficiency, strategic partnerships and further optimisation of operations. He said, “Having recently closed a successful funding round, the company is now perfectly poised to capitalise on what is still a nascent market opportunity in AI-driven comparative text analytics, at scale. With the calibre of team, product and customer base already in place, I firmly believe Relative Insight has great market fit and the best proposition to become a category leader.”

Dan Freed, partner at YFM, added: “As Relative Insight accelerates its growth journey, bringing on board two such experienced and respected industry experts will further boost an already strong team as the business expands in the UK and US.” Relative Insight’s technology helps insights and research professionals, marketers and brand specialists, and human resources departments uncover more value from the language data they already have. This data can be gleaned from online language of any kind; enabling comparison and benchmarking with competitors. It can include open-end questions in primary research, data from insights tools, social media and product reviews, and any other text assets - with analysis generating rich audience understanding for company decision-making.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Emma Kilmurray .