GWI Raises over $180M to Continue Building the Future of Audience Insights Technology
UK-founded technology company secures Series B investment from Permira’s growth fund
London (UK), 1 February 2022 - GWI, the leading audience insights company, today announced it has raised over $180 million in a Series B funding round at a valuation over $850 million. The financing was led by Permira’s growth fund.
GWI delivers global insights at scale, representing the views of 2.7 billion, digitally-connected consumers. It provides data about consumers’ demographics, preferences, and behavioural attitudes across 48 countries to help the world’s top brands, agencies, and media organisations gain a deep understanding of their audiences. The company enables clients to analyse harmonised-data sets across geographies through an easy-to-use platform, resulting in faster insights and quicker time-to-market. Customers include Google, Spotify, Twitter, EA, Red Bull, WPP, and Omnicom.
The new investment will be used to further advance GWI’s software as a service (SaaS) platform, extending its coverage and reach by capturing more data points from more consumers, in even more countries - particularly from underserved markets and segments.
The company has successfully launched highly targeted offerings like GWI Gaming, GWI Kids, and GWI Sports, and will continue to launch additional products to expand the level of insights on the audiences its customers care about the most. Innovation in UX, machine learning, and natural language processing will further build on GWI’s existing technology and provide audience intelligence that is easy to understand and accessible to any customers that need to make insights-driven decisions.
Since its founding in 2009 by CEO, Tom Smith, GWI has grown rapidly into the leading global market research and audience insights software platform. Following its $40 million Series A funding from the New York-based growth fund Stripes in 2018, the company has tripled recurring revenue and grown to nearly 400 employees based across offices in London, New York, Prague, and Athens.
CEO and Founder, Tom Smith, comments, “Companies today need an instantaneous view of their audience everywhere in the world. The traditional approach of market research is not fit for purpose - too slow, incredibly expensive, and lacks the scale and detail needed. Our technology has solved this problem and the result has been incredible growth over the last three years. We can’t wait to work with Permira on our five-year goal to put audience insights in the workflow of every professional”.
GWI joins Carta, FullStory, G2, Klarna and Sysdig, among others, as a Permira portfolio company.
Alex Melamud, Principal at Permira, comments, “Understanding the digital consumer will continue to be increasingly important to brands, agencies, and media organisations who focus on engaging and acquiring customers through digital channels. Companies competing in today’s marketplace need instant audience insights and we believe GWI’s modern platform and globally, harmonised data set provides a unique solution to any data storyteller. We look forward to leveraging our global platform to support GWI’s continued growth and expansion across international markets.”
Ron Shah, Partner at Stripes, adds, “GWI’s exceptional products should be in the hands of every professional who wants to better understand their customers and make smarter, data-driven decisions, and this milestone is a powerful step forward for the company. Since our original investment in 2018, Tom and the GWI team have made great strides in delivering a transformative and superior product and we believe they’re just getting started. We’re thrilled to have Permira join us in this journey to make GWI’s ambitions a reality.”
GWI was supported by Jefferies. Permira was advised by Moelis & Company.
