CulturePulse was founded in 2021 by Justin E. Lane, F. LeRon Shults, Brian Swichkow, and Maja Roknic, a US-Slovak team headquartered in Bratislava. The company raised a €1.5 million Series A round backed by Rockaway Ventures, B Ventures Group, and Simpact Ventures to expand its behavioral-modeling platform.
Its core technology, ARES, builds a psychological and behavioral digital twin of a target audience by training on cultural, linguistic, and demographic data across more than 70 languages, then lets a team run content, messaging, or policy positions against that simulated audience before spending money on live testing. ARES scores reactions across more than 50 dimensions, including anger, anxiety, personality traits, morality, and markers tied to hate speech or racism, rather than returning a single sentiment score.
Used across corporate, academic, and government sectors that need to gauge how a message will land with a specific population before publishing or funding it. CulturePulse runs a free entry plan with no credit card required, with paid plans for advanced modeling and larger audience simulations priced on request through its sales team.
