SPARK Neuro, the company revolutionizing the evaluation of audience engagement in advertising and entertainment, announced today that it has secured a $13.5 million Series A financing round led by Thiel Capital with participation from actor and producer Will Smith and media and entertainment industry titan Michael Eisner's Tornante Company.

Advertisers, networks and movie studios are creating more content than ever before, and the increased competition has brought the need to evaluate how that content will resonate with consumer audiences to an all-time high. SPARK Neuro breaks through traditional, biased approaches to measuring ads, movies, trailers and other creative content, by going right to the source, measuring brain and other nervous system activity to see exactly when people are engaged and when they are not.

"Since the days of Mad Men the need to evaluate content has been critical, but traditional methods like focus groups, surveys and polls continuously fail because they are riddled with biases and incomplete data," said Spencer Gerrol, CEO of SPARK Neuro. "At SPARK Neuro we bring brands, studios and other content creators an unmatched ability to know whether or not their content will succeed, and we're proud to have support from industry legends Michael Eisner and Will Smith as we grow."

SPARK Neuro will use the capital to meet the incredible international and domestic demand from current Fortune 100 clients, including Anheuser-Busch, Clorox, FedEx, Fidelity, General Motors, Hulu, JetBlue, Mars, NBC, Paramount, State Farm, Paramount and Walmart, and expand across industries.

SPARK Neuro's approach measures four key factors to determine if content resonates with consumers - brain activity, electrodermal activity, facial expression and eye tracking. Their proprietary algorithms are able to analyze the data collected, more than 6,000 data points per second, to determine how a person responds emotionally to the content presented.

ABOUT SPARK Neuro

Founded in 2017, SPARK Neuro is a research company revolutionizing the evaluation of audience engagement in advertising and entertainment. Instead of relying on traditional, biased approaches, SPARK Neuro goes right to the source, measuring brain and nervous system activity to see exactly when people are engaged and when they are not. SPARK Neuro quantifies attention and emotional levels with second-by-second precision. SPARK Neuro's research is trusted by major brands, ad agencies, TV networks, movie studios and the US Military. Partners include, Anheuser-Busch, Barclays, Clorox, FedEx, Fidelity, General Motors, JetBlue, Hulu, Mars, NBC, Paramount, State Farm, Universal, and Walmart.