Decision Science Startup Bridgetown Research Raises $19M in Series A

Bridgetown Research, an emerging player in decision science and AI research, has secured $19 million in Series A funding led by venture capital firms Lightspeed and Accel. Additional backing comes from an unnamed leading research university.

Founded by Harsh Sahai, whose background includes leadership roles in machine learning at Amazon and consulting work at McKinsey & Co., Bridgetown Research has assembled a founding team drawing talent from top consulting firms, including McKinsey and Bain, and Amazon and various tech startups.

The company's standout offering is its voice bot solution that autonomously conducts interviews with industry experts to gather primary research data. This information is combined with alternative data sources provided by Bridgetown's partners.

"We are excited to be a catalyst for change," said Sahai, CEO and founder. "We are working with multiple private equity firms, management consulting firms, and corporate teams to help make strategic decisions better and faster."

Sahai emphasized the economic multiplier effect of their service: "We enable $10+ of advisory and information services revenue for every $1 we make. Together with leading institutions, we're building something bigger than ourselves—an ecosystem where everyone thrives."

Unlike many AI solutions that primarily rely on Large Language Models to search and summarize publicly available information, Bridgetown focuses on gathering proprietary inputs, such as expert interviews and customer surveys, combined with structured frameworks that Sahai refers to as "ontologies."

"AI is causing widespread disruptions across many enterprise functions, and Bridgetown Research is riding that wave by assisting executives in making important strategic decisions," noted Anagh Prasad, an investor at Accel.

The company initially targeted private equity deal screening and due diligence processes, with several top-tier PE and VC firms already utilizing the platform. According to Bridgetown, these firms have reduced their initial analysis time from weeks to just 24 hours, allowing investment teams to shift focus from background research to actual decision-making.

For other clients, the company reports facilitating voice-of-customer research at scale, processing hundreds of respondent interviews simultaneously—a task that traditionally requires significant time and human resources.