Overview
De Mesmaeker is from Londerzeel and took an undergraduate degree in software engineering at KU Leuven. Hendrik Van Hove applied to Y Combinator in October 2023 with only the idea, while still working at McKinsey & Company, and a group partner encouraged him to apply again. He left McKinsey, was connected to De Mesmaeker through a mutual friend, and the two incorporated the company in April 2024 and were accepted into the Summer 2024 batch. Conveo has since added Niels Schillewaert, co-founder of Human8, formerly InSites Consulting, as head of research and methods.
He founded it in April 2024 with Hendrik Van Hove, now co-founder and chief product officer, and the company went through Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch. In March 2025 Conveo announced a seed round of 5.3 million dollars, reported in euros as 4.9 million, backed by Y Combinator, 6 Degrees Capital, Entourage Capital, Pitchdrive and Syndicate One, raised to expand in its core US and European markets. Customers named by the company include Unilever, AB InBev, Google, Canva, Procter & Gamble, Orange and Sanofi. In July 2026 Conveo launched StoryLines, a continuous programme that runs recurring interview waves weekly, biweekly or monthly across brand health, advertising and creative, innovation and product launches. On that launch De Mesmaeker said the company built StoryLines so consumer understanding stops being a service you buy and becomes a system the company runs on.
Career history
In the news
- Still buzzing after the Fortune 500 Europe 2026 launch event at the London Stock Exchange yesterday, where Conveo was a proud sponsor. A room full of Europe's top CEOs, and there was Niels up on stage running a masterclass on AI and customer intelligence. Two years ago it was Hendrik and me and an idea. Today, over 400 enterprises run on Conveo, including some of the very same CEOs sitting in this room. We've grown from 20 to 100 people in under eight months. Turns out there's no actual bell at these things. Just a small button
- There has never been a more exciting time to work at Conveo than right now. We have a fresh Series A, research and insights teams choosing us to bring them closer to their customers, and more momentum than ever. You'll be joining builders who've done research at global brands, engineers who've exited their own companies, and leaders with 30+ years at places like Palantir, Google, Ipsos, and McKinsey. The people who thrive here care about the researcher on the other side of the screen. The one with a launch in six weeks and a
- Some companies in market research are already pitching the end of researchers. We see it differently. Our job at Conveo isn't to replace the researcher inside a company. It's to empower them to be more influential than ever. We help you run the research faster. We surface the trends that would take hours of grunt work, instantly. We generate the decks and quote reels that convince the business in minutes. What we don't do is decide what happens next. Turning an insight into real change still takes someone who knows the business,
- Dyson might be the best company in the world at making me realize I desperately need something I didn’t even know was a problem 5 minutes ago.
- Exciting milestone today for Conveo with the announcement of their $50M Series A. Congrats to Dieter De Mesmaeker, Hendrik Van Hove and the entire team! 🚀 Amazing to see the progress from the initial AI research assistant to today's consumer understanding infrastructure, used by over 400 enterprises globally. Glad we backed you with Entourage at the pre-seed, and excited for what's ahead! cc Pieterjan Bouten, Maarten Mortier, Anne-Elisabeth, Sixtine, Erwan, Illja, Florian Hendrickx 🔥 https://lnkd.in/ev_vZMmd
- At Entourage we believe the best founders don't need any handholding. Dieter De Mesmaeker and Hendrik Van Hove founders of Conveo are Exhibit A. So we'll take zero credit for their 💥 $50M round, led by DST Global, Balderton and Visionaries with Entourage Ventures doubling down. All we did was write the first cheque based on conviction in the founders, the stellar team they were hiring + the exciting space they were building in. What started as an AI research assistant is now the customer understanding layer for 400+
- Conveo is building such an awesome team and I fell in love with the product and market ever since Dieter De Mesmaeker ‘s first demo. Great to see them seize the opportunity to scale further!
- This is just the beginning. So grateful to be working with the most incredible team. We're always looking for exceptional people and are hiring in SF, NYC, London and Antwerp.
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