Pollfish’s U.S. Success Story
How this SMB from Greece in the Mobile Technology/ Mobile Applications industry made it in the U.S.A
Country Of Origin Greece
U.S. HQ. New York, USA
Industry Mobile Technology/ Mobile Applications
Year Founded Sep 1, 2013
Number Of Employees 18
Annual revenue $1.3 (Estimated)
About Pollfish
Pollfish is a hybrid-service survey platform that brings together methodology and technology to provide an innovative solution for conducting market research. The platform also collects the most accurate insights. Ideally, the platform utilizes organic sampling, a methodology of surveying real consumers randomly within the devices they are organically engaged in. Pollfish provides real insights in real time by distributing mobile consumer network in the apps they are already using.
Expanding to the US Market
In the last two years, this startup company has shown unending interest in expanding to the US market. Well, the company was able to raise part of the funds needed to venture into the US market. The move to establish the US subsidiary office comes at a time the company has grown from 120 million consumers to 475 million. In addition, the company has been able to deploy Pollfish in more than 160 countries and built survey capabilities in more than 24 languages.
Presently, the traditional Market Research industry in the US is being disrupted radically by a fundamental shift in the requirements of modern brand marketers. This is achievable by having the ability to gather data from real mobile consumers quickly and efficiently. In turn, that enables better business decision-making and creates more personalized customer experiences by companies in the USA.
In the wake of this disruption, a new breed of market research providers is arising in the US. Pollfish has taken their product to the US to realize this opportunity and meet the needs of modern marketers in the USA.
In the efforts to expand to the US, Pollfish has also improved the audience targeting capabilities of their platform. Currently, US researchers can target by geolocation using very specified criteria, like ZIP code, market, and census. Users of the Pollfish platform can apply audience filtering by mobile data through previewing the apps a user has on their phone. Moreover, the platform has expanded the demo targeting. The demo can now reach nine different personas, including more niche audiences like ‘bookworms’ and ‘value shoppers’. This is good news to the users of the platform in the US.
Injecting New Blood for the US Expansion
The move to expand to the United States saw the company hire two new executives and one new board member. This move aimed to capitalize on the new features of the platform and ensure that the company continues its rapid growth.
One of the new executives is Michael Harbolt, who has worked at some of the biggest digital media and financial services companies in the world. He took the new role as the new VP of Marketing in January last year. Michael has close to twenty years of experience in driving revenue, profit, and excellent performance across digital marketing channels. Additionally, he is anticipated to use his expertise in securing highly effective and low-cost solutions like Pollfish to meet business objectives.
Kyle Gollins joined Pollfish from Research Now, a global leader in digital research data. He was hired with anticipation that he would put his 18 years of experience in the market research industry to practice. It is no secret that he has been able to hit $30 million in annual revenue while working with other corporate and media clients. Kyle’s specializes in ad effectiveness measurement, segmentation, and brand tracking.
To help the board steer the business in the right path towards dominating the US market, a new board member joined the company. Jim Follet joined Pollfish after successfully establishing himself in marketing director positions at four major CPG brands including Kraft, Procter & Gamble, and Nestlé. Jim brought over 25 years of experience into Pollfish that will help it sustain long-term growth across all channels.
Financing the US Expansion
On February 2018, Pollfish received $6 in funding to venture into the new US market! At the same time, the company launched a new survey self-service platform.
Greek startup Pollfish seems to have its hands full lately since after achieving receiving a total of $6 million in funding recently, launched a new online platform that allows enterprises and end-users to execute real-time market researches worldwide!
To assist the US expansion plan, the company raised a $6.3M Series B round of financing led by EBRD Venture Capital Investment Program. The new round of funding was put to work and help build out the company’s team. Moreover, the funds were intended to help the company expand its publisher networks and solution set to better meet the needs of the company’s client roster. This funding followed the company’s $2.5 million Series A round in 2015. To date, the company raised an additional $9M from European VCs, including EBRD VC, Odyssey Venture Partners, and PJ Tech Catalyst. These funds have gone a long way to assist the company in the US expansion plan.
Sources
Note: This company is not a client of, or associated in any other way with, Mount Bonnell Advisors, or has been involved in this publication. This content has been produced using the following information sources in the public domain: