Most CPG companies run thousands of promotions per month — amounting to millions of dollars spent, although the majority of those promotions don’t deliver any ROI. A Mexican-based start-up called Kuona, which just raised a $6 million seed round led by VC firm Cometa, says it can deliver more reliable results and a higher ROI. 

Kuona uses machine learning to optimize promotions by retailers and CPG companies to show which ones are succeeding, then automatically optimizes product prices and inventories in connection with those promotions. 

By integrating with its clients to capture real-time data and leveraging neural networks for simulations with a high precision level (up to 97%, the company says), Kuona aims to provide a more effective and cost-efficient solution. 

Kuona was founded by Chema Sanroman and Agustín Magaña, who have spent their careers in data science, artificial intelligence (AI), and CPG revenue and pricing management.

Launched in 2017, the company set out to help the competitive CPG and retail industries better adapt to the ever-changing consumer-market dynamics by leveraging data-driven tools to predict demand and track customer behavior.

The company has doubled its revenue and customers for each of the past two years and is now profitable. It depends on 15 to 20 customers from global entities like Coca-Cola and OXXO convenience stores.

Sanroman said in a statement that Kuona is built to service modern trade, like supermarkets and convenience stores, major e-commerce organizations, and traditional mom and pop stores, adding that the platform can adjust to data available in different countries, calling Kuona “truly global in nature.”

The company says the new capital will be used to expand Kuona’s presence and team in key geographies, primarily Latin America, Europe, and the United States. 

“Speaking to Kuona’s clients, we were able to assess how crucial the platform’s outputs have become for their decision-making processes and how variables such as margin and sold quantity expected impacts have determined the accurate timing and execution of campaigns,” says Rafael de Haro, co-founder and managing partner at Cometa.

Kuona uses machine learning to optimize promotions by retailers and CPG companies to show which ones are succeeding, then automatically optimizes product prices and inventories in connection with those promotions.