This $500 million AI startup does customer interviews for Microsoft and Sweetgreen

Venture capitalist Micky Malka has been conducting online surveys for years to test the investment requirements of his fund Ribbit Capital, which was an early backer of Robinhood, Coinbase and NuBank. Those bets won Malka a spot on the Midas list, but he is increasingly frustrated by the challenges posed by such old-fashioned data collection: patchy data, skyrocketing costs and delays in assembling panels that could delay results for weeks.

Then he started using Listen Labs, a tool that uses AI interviewers to conduct his customer research. Now his company uses the tool every week to research new and old startup bets, and Malka is so confident that he started making the AI ​​tool available to his portfolio companies. “Listening is the best tool to understand the customer,” he said. “Instead of…