PureSpectrum Sample Marketplace Launches

In Westlake Village, California, former Cint US MD Michael McCrary has launched PureSpectrum, a new global marketplace for buyers and sellers of online sample. The company is backed by strategic investments from Research Now and Critical Mix.

PureSpectrum is located within the Hub101 startup incubator space, part of the Cal Lutheran University Center for Entrepreneurship. In a preliminary announcement in August, the firm said it had raised $1.6m in a Series A round of financing but did not at the time name the investors.

McCrary worked for six years at pioneering panel firm Greenfield Online, and then as a consultant for a year, before joining Cint in 2010.

PureSpectrum says its mission is 'to create the most intuitive and intelligent marketplace to bring together quality suppliers and buyers in a simple and user-friendly application', and promises: 'We won't stop until we can deliver any audience, anywhere, with excellent quality, at a great price'. New features, geographies and suppliers are due to be added in the coming months.

CEO McCrary says the initial focus is 'to enable buyers to create audiences and quotas, select high-quality suppliers, and launch a survey in less than one minute'. Research Now Chief Exec Gary Laben says PureSpectrum helps his company serve a customer segment that prefers automated or do it yourself solutions, and adds: 'Making sure our panels are accessible in an environment that is both brand safe and transparent about our quality, like PureSpectrum, is imperative to us'.

Critical Mix co-CEO Keith Price says the new firm allows his company 'to offer customers an additional DIY option for accessing our high-quality audiences'. He concludes: 'PureSpectrum's vision of preserving quality, total transparency and ease of use aligns with our own'.

The new company's home page is at www.purespectrum.com .