MakerSights
Founded 2015 · 27 employees on LinkedIn · 14 known investors
MakerSights provides consumer preference insights and AI-driven validation for product teams, merchants, and designers in the retail industry. The platform helps brands optimize assortment, pricing, and product decisions by combining expert-led research with continuous AI testing to reduce excess inventory and waste.
Also known as Makersights
Founders & leadership
MakerSights was founded in 2015 by Dan Leahy.
Investors · 14
Also in the syndicate · 9
Company profile
researched Aug 2026MakerSights is a consumer insights company serving retail brands, focused on apparel, footwear and accessories. It combines expert-led, high-touch research with an always-on AI testing capability so brands can validate products at seasonal kickoff, during line review and through final line adoption. The company positions its offering as an "insight program" rather than one-off studies, delivering product and innovation insights, assortment insights and pricing insights to product teams, merchants, designers and sales teams.
The platform's stated goal is to move brands from testing roughly 20% of a line to validating 100% of it, including the "long tail" of an assortment. Its MakerLabs product is described as an always-on product insights lab built on "Digital Twins" — AI models trained on millions of real consumer responses and refreshed with new research — that return sentiment scores, ranked performance and qualitative feedback on uploaded product ideas in under an hour. Earlier company materials describe the platform as a "product decision engine" that combines the voice of the consumer, merchant intuition and historical selling data, with machine learning algorithms analyzing in-market selling to improve recommendations.
MakerSights frames outcomes in terms of faster inventory turnover, increased assortment productivity and expanded distribution, and links its mission to reducing excess inventory and textile waste in retail.
Founding story
Co-founder and CEO Dan Leahy states the company was created with the vision of reducing the distance between creatives and the consumers they serve. He later described three constraints the team came to understand: insights teams are stretched thin, traditional research feels burdensome and slow, and research costs stack up so that only the largest launches receive consumer insight.
Business model
MakerSights sells research and insights programs to retail brands, combining services from a team of retail advisors with access to its software and AI testing tools. The website directs prospective customers to book a demo, take a tour or explore pricing, indicating a direct enterprise sales motion.
Traction
At the time of the 2019 Series A, MakerSights reported growing its customer base 5x and said brands using the platform experienced an average 4-7% margin lift and had de-risked billions of dollars of inventory investments. Customers cited on the website include Hoka, Reebok, Ralph Lauren and Madewell. Total disclosed funding reached $37 million as of the August 2021 Series B.
Latest developments
In an August 2025 post, co-founder and CEO Dan Leahy introduced MakerLabs, an always-on product insights lab powered by Digital Twins that lets teams upload product ideas and receive consumer feedback in under an hour.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
The company describes itself as a modern research partner to top retail brands and, in earlier materials, as the pioneer of a "product decision engine" for retail, positioning itself against traditional research processes characterized by weeks-long timelines and lengthy report deliverables.
MakerSights combines high-touch expert-led validation for major decisions with an always-on AI engine for daily testing, and claims coverage of an entire product line rather than a sampled subset. It emphasizes translating data into actionable takeaways, embedding with client teams, and returning results in under an hour versus weeks for conventional studies.
Technology
MakerLabs is built on "Digital Twins," AI models trained on millions of real consumer responses and intended to reflect a brand's specific audience, allowing product ideas to be tested without fielding a new survey each time; the models are regularly refreshed with new consumer research. Outputs include sentiment scores, ranked performance and qualitative feedback. The company cites large language models as an enabling technology and, in earlier descriptions, machine learning algorithms that analyze in-market selling data to predict consumer sales and improve decision recommendations.
Go-to-market
Direct enterprise engagement, with website calls to action for demos, tours, pricing conversations and a newsletter, supported by published customer testimonials and a resources/blog library. Proceeds from the 2019 Series A were earmarked in part to scale go-to-market operations.
Apparel, footwear and accessories brands, including large enterprise retailers. Within those organizations, the buyers and users are product and innovation teams, merchants, designers, sales teams, insights leaders and executives. Named brands referenced include Calvin Klein, Levi's, Tommy Hilfiger, Shinola, Taylor Stitch, HOKA ONE ONE, Teva, Allbirds, Reebok, Ralph Lauren and Madewell.
Geography
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, with a stated practice of connecting brands with consumers globally; the 2019 Series A was intended in part to fuel international expansion.
History
Founder and CEO Dan Leahy describes roughly a decade of work helping brands better understand their consumers as of an August 2025 post. The company raised $3.1 million in seed funding led by Baseline Ventures in 2017, an $8.5 million Series A led by Forerunner Ventures announced in June 2019, and a $25 million Series B led by G2 Venture Partners announced in August 2021, bringing total funding to $37 million at that time. Following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the company reoriented its AI investments around the insight-gathering process, which led to the creation of MakerLabs.
Compiled by commissioned research from 6 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Competitors · 2
by search overlap
Companies competing with MakerSights for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 5
launches, deals, and filingsCo-founder and CEO Dan Leahy described MakerLabs, an always-on product insights lab built on Digital Twins — AI models trained on millions of real consumer responses — that returns sentiment scores, ranked performance and qualitative feedback on uploaded product ideas in under an hour.
New investors G2 Venture Partners, Golub Capital and Gaingels joined existing investors Forerunner Ventures and Baseline Ventures plus retail technology executives, bringing total funding to $37 million.
$25M source ↗
Capital earmarked for key leadership hires, in-house engineering and data team growth, international expansion and scaling go-to-market operations. Brian O'Malley of Forerunner Ventures joined the board of directors.
$8.5M source ↗
MakerSights raised $3.1 million in seed funding led by Baseline Ventures.
$3.1M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 6
primary sources listed
- MakerSightsmakersights.com · web
6 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does MakerSights do?
- MakerSights runs consumer research and AI-based product testing programs for apparel, footwear and accessories brands.
- Who founded MakerSights?
- MakerSights was founded by Dan Leahy in 2015.
- Who are MakerSights's investors?
- MakerSights's investors include Baseline Ventures, Cota Capital, G2 Venture Partners, Golub Growth, Forerunner Ventures.