Funds for Analytics Firms in US, UK and Australia

Investment continues to flow into analytics companies: VoC predictive analytics firm First Insight, location-based social media specialist Geofeedia, people analytics company Culture Amp and prospect scoring firm Growth Intelligence have all announced funding wins so far in March.

First Insight, whose solutions combine predictive analytics and real-time consumer feedback to allow users to build the voice of the consumer into the design and merchandising of new products, won $14m from tech growth equity firm Updata Partners. First Insight is more than doubling revenue each year, and says it will use the funds to expand into new geographies and vertical markets, and add to add advanced marketing capabilities to its platform. Updata General Partner James Socas has joined First Insight's Board.

CEO Greg Petro comments: 'We have a clear and simple mission to help leading companies around the world maximize new product success and reduce product failures through the benefit of customer insight. This new capital gives us the fuel and flexibility to capitalize on this enormous opportunity and continue to innovate in our market.'


Geofeedia has closed a $3m series A4 financing round led by Hyde Park Venture Partners and with contributions from existing investors Tim Kopp, former CMO of ExactTarget; David Gupta, founder and CEO of SDI Enterprises; and former Motorola President Gene Delaney. Adding to earlier funding of $3.8m, the money will allow Geofeedia to hire key talent, invest in marketing, and expand into new vertical segments. CEO and cofounder Phil Harris says the firm is on target to quadruple its customer base in 2015, and adds: 'This round provides the capital needed to hire the very best talent available so that we can execute on marketing, sales and overall growth as we expand into even more verticals.'

Geofeedia recently opened an office in Indianapolis' Circle Tower building, and says it expects to hire 50 additional team members this year. New features and functionality are scheduled for rollout in the coming months.


Culture Amp, which has offices in San Francisco and Melbourne and provides real-time data and insights into company culture through customizable and specialized surveys, has announced $6.3m in Series A funding, led by Felicis Ventures, Index Ventures and Blackbird Ventures. The funds are earmarked for accelerating expansion of its platform. Felicis MD Wesley Chan, founder of Google Analytics, will join the Culture Amp Board.

Co-founder and CEO Didier Elzinga says of the win: 'Culture Amp's platform has grown to date through word-of-mouth. With this investment, we want to accelerate development of our technology, and expand our marketing and sales efforts, so we can continue to provide the most insightful platform available for company culture and people analytics.'


London-based B2B specialist Growth Intelligence (Gi) has raised $3.4m, which it says will be used to recruit data scientists and engineers. The firm's 'Buyer Matrix' SaaS platform uses machine learning with big data on millions of firms to predict which businesses will respond best to a marketing approach. The round included 83 North, MMC Ventures, Indeed.com founder Paul Forster, early Google employee and Chief Economist Hal Varian and early Yahoo! investor John Taysom. Gi says it will use the investment to boost client ROI and support algorithm development. Alan Morgan from MMC will join the Board, as will Paul Forster.

Founder and CEO Tom Gatten says the money will help Gi to further develop its Predictive Marketing platform, adding: 'We're proud to be taking Predictive Marketing to the world with such a distinguished team around us.'


Web sites are at www.firstinsight.com , www.geofeedia.com , www.cultureamp.com and www.growthintel.com .