Online consumer survey company Survata raises $6M

Survata helps thousands of businesses get consumer feedback via survey research

Collecting consumer feedback is very important to big brands, but getting that information via survey research is a slow and expensive process.  Survata, a company that conducts consumer surveys for CPG companies, ad agencies, hedge funds, and even some VCs, wants to change that.

The company has now raised a $6 million Series A round of funding, it was announced on Monday. 

The round was led by IDG Ventures with participation from Bloomberg Beta, Alexis Ohanian & Garry Tan, and strategic angels like Tom Patterson, who was SVP at MarketTools. The company says that it "aimed for investors who understand selling data and information products."

The company has previously raised a $1.5 million seed round in May 2013 from SoftTech and PivotNorth.

Survata, which participated in Y Combinator in 2012, allows its clients to collect feedback on ads, product designs, or product names, aswell as to gauge demand for new products or features, test investment theses or measure any type of consumer behavior.

The company does this by partnering with online publishers, such as eBook stores, magazines and video sites, whose readers take a Survata survey to unlock some type of premium content, directly on the publisher’s site. 

Here's how it works: the client comes to Survata with a business question to answer, such as 'How will consumers perceive the packaging on this new product?'  They type in their questionnaire, and choose their demographic and behavioral targeting.  A trained Survey Analyst then quickly reviews the questionnaire to ensure the client is following research best practices.  Then Survata finds the online respondents to be interviewed.  The client sees the results return in real-time on an online dashboard.

The company does not sell software, only data, as its clients pay to find targeted respondents to complete the client’s survey. 

"One of our Fortune 500 clients said it best. 'Before Survata, running consumer surveys was 5 weeks of bureaucratic hell.'  We make it simple & affordable.  Starting at $1 per respondent, you can interview consumers from a highly targeted demographic or behavioral segment.  Your results will start coming in today," Chris Kelly, CEO of Survata, told me.

"Our 3 most common client types are consumer products companies, for example Clorox and Chipotle, as well as professional services, for example ad agencies and PR firms, and, finally, financial services, for example hedge funds and PE firms. We've served thousands of businesses."

There are many potential use cases for Survata. Many clients use Survata for “trackers," or monthly indexes to track a certain consumer metric.  For example, clients track how consumer perception of a product changes monthly.

Others clients use Survata's API to programmatically collect consumer feedback.  For example, one clients uses the service to programmatically get feedback on titles for article and blog posts.  Journalists even use Survata to get consumer data for stories.

"We give our clients valuable consumer data for any business decision.  Clients use us to select the correct banner or video ad before launching million dollar branding campaigns," Kelly told me. "They use us to select the right package design before shipping a product on Wal-Mart shelves.  They use us to track what consumers think of their brand or their competitors' brands."

The company's clients include brands like Clorox, Chipotle, Disney, Microsoft, Google, and Samsung.

Survata's main competition comes from research agencies who conduct online surveys the "old-fashioned way."

"Survata is vastly more agile and affordable. Think of LegalZoom compared to a law firm.  We also are pioneering a new approach to consumer interviews: instead of maintaining our own panel, we partner with online publishers to have their visitors take our surveys to unlock premium content," Kelly said. "Counter-intuitively to most people, this publisher approach has proven to collect significantly more accurate data than traditional panels, because we're not interviewing "survey addicts" who are churning through surveys to earn cash."

The new funding will primarily go to building out the company's sales and product teams. 

"On the sales side, we're doing more enterprise sales for high-end clients who purchase Survata in pre-paid packages to access premium features, such as extra targeting capabilities, extra question types, extra analytical tools," Kelly said. "On the product side, we're building those premium features, and extending our support for trackers, recurring surveys that clients run on a monthly basis to track trends."

Ultimately, what Survata wants to do is "build a world-class research company."

"We want all business decisions makers to turn to Survata when they need consumer data fast."