Citibeats

Citibeats was a technology firm headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, that provided a social intelligence and text analytics platform. Founded in 2018 by Ivan Caballero, the company specialized in using ethical artificial intelligence, including natural language processing and machine learning, to analyze vast quantities of unstructured text data. This process aimed to identify emerging social trends, public concerns, and population needs in real-time, offering insights faster than traditional survey methods.

The founder, Ivan Caballero, is a serial tech entrepreneur with a background in purpose-driven ventures. His journey into creating Citibeats was influenced by a previous project, The Social Coin, a social experiment to track acts of kindness which highlighted the need to understand the context of societal needs. This experience, combined with over two decades of work in technology and social engagement, shaped Citibeats' mission to integrate citizens' voices into decision-making processes.

The company operated on a business-to-business (B2B) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, which evolved from a project-based approach to a subscription license. Its primary clients included governments, multilateral organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and private sector companies. The platform was designed to help these entities make better-informed decisions on topics ranging from sustainable development and social risk to disaster response and public health. For example, it assisted the WHO in managing the COVID-19 infodemic and helped the Dublin City Council gather extensive citizen feedback for its Smart Dublin initiative.

The core service was its AI-powered platform, which featured specific products like the Sustainability and Social Risk Monitors. These tools provided real-time and historical data points, allowing clients to analyze complex public narratives around issues such as climate change, migration, and citizen security. The technology was language-agnostic and designed to reduce bias, capturing voices often missed by conventional research. Throughout its operation, Citibeats gained significant recognition, including being named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in 2022 and winning a World Summit Award in 2018. In February 2025, founder Ivan Caballero announced the shutdown of the company, citing challenges with product-market fit, the difficulty of creating a new market category, and a tough investment climate in Spain.

Keywords: social intelligence, text analytics, natural language processing, public opinion analysis, citizen feedback, social risk monitoring, govtech, ethical AI, civic technology, real-time data, societal trends, policy making, sustainable development, disaster response, public health intelligence, Ivan Caballero, social data platform, sentiment analysis, AI for good, big data analytics