Flagship Pioneering, Creator Of Moderna, Launches Extuitive With $20M To Reinvent Consumer Products Using AI Shoppers – Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA)

Flagship Pioneering, the Cambridge venture firm known for creating Moderna MRNA, last Thursday unveiled a new startup called Extuitive with $20 million in seed funding.

The company said the platform is designed to equip small businesses with artificial intelligence tools that simulate consumer behavior, a capability historically used by large corporations.

The startup launch represents a change for the 26-year-old firm that built its reputation by fostering life sciences companies worth billions. The launch comes amid a downturn in biotech venture funding, with BioPharma Dive reporting that financing for the sector fell sharply in the first half of 2025 as investors look to new areas of growth.

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AI Platform Simulates 100,000 Real Consumers in Seconds to Validate Products

Extuitive combines generative AI with evolutionary algorithms to create virtual consumers based on purchasing data from 100,000 real shoppers. These AI consumers can test thousands of product concepts and marketing campaigns in minutes, delivering insights that traditionally required months and millions of dollars to obtain, according to the company website.

“With Extuitive, we’ve created a platform that simulates real human preferences with remarkable precision, allowing entrepreneurs to generate, refine, compare, and validate products and targeted creative content with accuracy and speed,” Extuitive co-founder and CEO Armen Mkrtchyan said in the statement.

The platform addresses a critical market gap affecting 40% of the U.S. gross domestic product. Small businesses have been locked out of sophisticated research tools that help major corporations develop hit products, according to Flagship Pioneering.

Mkrtchyan, who joined Flagship Pioneering after studying at MIT and building autonomous drone technology for farmers, believes his platform could enable billion-dollar companies run by single entrepreneurs.

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Noubar Afeyan’s Flagship Bets Big on Intelligence Revolution Beyond Healthcare

The venture represents the latest evolution of Flagship’s “polyintelligent design” philosophy, which combines human creativity with machine intelligence and nature’s adaptive systems. Flagship’s founder and CEO Noubar Afeyan sees Extuitive as part of a broader transformation in breakthrough innovation.

“At Flagship, we believe the most profound breakthroughs come from challenging assumptions and expanding the frontiers of possibility, whether in biology, sustainability, or now, intelligence itself,” Afeyan, Extuitive’s co-founder and chair, said in the statement. “As AI increasingly becomes an engine of discovery and design, we see a unique opportunity to transform entire industries, starting with how consumer products and targeted creative content are imagined, tested, and brought to market.”

“By applying advanced AI to democratize product innovation and marketing, Extuitive is enabling a new class of entrepreneurs to create and amplify with the speed, insight, and sophistication once limited to the world’s largest companies,” Afeyan said.

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Flagship Pioneering’s $14 Billion Portfolio, Nielsen Executives, and Affinnova Legacy Drive Extuitive’s AI Ambitions

Extuitive builds on the legacy of Affinnova, a Flagship-founded pioneer in algorithmic design that Nielsen Holdings NLSN acquired in 2014 for its consumer-driven product optimization technology,  according to Flagship Pioneering.

The startup’s leadership team includes Sunand Menon as president and Chong Guo as chief science officer, with a board featuring Flagship Pioneering Senior Partner Jim Gilbert and Nielsen Executive Chair David Kenny.

Flagship Pioneering says it has $14 billion in assets under management and originated more than 100 scientific ventures since 2000. The current ecosystem includes over 40 companies spanning healthcare, agriculture, and consumer technology.

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