Acquisitions/transactions 

Human insight company UserTesting and UX insights company UserZoom have merged to create an end-to-end solution for experience research and insights.   

Strategic insight and customer analytics group STRAT7 has acquired strategy, insight and planning consultancy Rainmakers CSI. It will join STRAT7’s Incite agency. 

Data analytics and advisory firm Escalent has acquired customer insight, strategy and innovation agency C Space and insight agency Hall & Partners from Omnicom. 

M3 Global Research has acquired medical market researcher Med Planet to strengthen its capabilities and European reach.  

Research agency Fors Marsh has acquired social impact marketing firm Brunet-García.

Alliances/strategic partnerships 

Financial well-being platform nudge Global has partnered with LionHeart, a U.K.-based charity supporting the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors professionals, to support individuals facing financial challenges.  

Strategic insights and brand consultancy Heart+Mind Strategies has joined independent agency Nostos Network as a market research-centric partner.  

GfK and price intelligence company Minderest have partnered to improve data-driven pricing in e-commerce and to provide manufacturers and retailers an overview of current prices in their markets. 

Commercial analytics company Analytic Partners has integrated data from YouGov’s BrandIndex into its analytics solution.  

Data and insights company Pureprofile has partnered with shopping, rewards and payments platform ShopBack to help shoppers earn cash back by completing surveys.  

Association/organization news 

Italian regulators have temporarily banned OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT due to data privacy concerns. 

The Marketing Research Education Foundation will host the third annual Race Around the World for Education, a virtual race held throughout the month of May to help raise money to support global education for children. 

The Insights Association (IA) has called for alterations in the Federal Trade Commission’s proposition to remove most noncompete restrictions on workers. IA argues that they should only be removed from lower-level employees. 

ESOMAR has launched the International Market Research Day, an insights and analytics celebration from April 24-May 5.

Awards/rankings  

ESOMAR and the Australian Data and Insights Association have opened entries for the 2023 Research Got Talent Award. 

Rebecca Brooks, CEO and founder of market research consultancy Alter Agents, has been named on Inc.’s 2023 Female Founders list. 

QRCA has named the 2023 QRCA Award recipients including Pam Goldfarb Liss as the Impact Award winner, Anya Zadrozny as winner of the Maryanne Pflug Spirit Award, Ilka Kuhagen as winner of the President’s Award and Chiara Albanese as the Rising Star Award recipient. 

QRCA has named Faith Curry, Amanda Lester and Nathaniel Hejl as the winners of the 2023 Lloyd J. Harris Scholarship Fund. 

Sampling and ResTech company InnovateMR won two Gold Stevie Awards in the 2023 American Business Awards. Its InnovateYou program won in the New Product and Service – Business Technology, Wellness Solution category and its content campaign won in the Communications or PR Campaign of the Year – Content Marketing category. 

Research Association New Zealand has inducted Ant Franklin, CEO of market research software and solutions provider Infotools, as a life member.

New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions 

Digital rewards and payment provider NeoCurrency has launched its Reward Choice product in 50 countries and 38 currencies.  

Media tech and data company Mediatel has rebranded as Adwanted UK. 

Market research advisory firm Savanta has expanded its omnibus survey MillionaireVue to the Netherlands, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. 

Public opinion polling, market research and data analytics firm O.H. Predictive Insights has rebranded as Noble Predictive Insights. 

Research company earnings/financial news 

Australia-based survey platform Conjointly has announced an AU$20,000 grant for AI alignment and safety research.

Merchandising experience platform EDITED raised $15 million in its funding round led by Delta-v Capital with support from Wavecrest Growth Partners, Beringea LLC and Hermes GPE.

E-commerce analytics platform Birdseye raised $500,000 in its pre-seed investment round from Drive Capital to expand its engineering team and to develop AI-powered marketing technology. 

Data platform Dashbot has raised $6 million in its Series A funding round led by Florida Funders, Bessemer Venture Partners and new and returning investors. 

Software company NuMind has raised $3 million in its seed funding round led by Flybridge to build its NLP tool focusing on text understanding.    

Market intelligence platform Rwazi has raised $4 million in its seed funding round led by Bonfire Ventures with participation from Newfound Capital and Alumni Ventures.

Data and analytics software company Quantexa has completed its $129 million Series E funding round. The investment round was led by GIC with participation from Warburg Pincus, Dawn Capital, British Patient Capital and other existing investors.  

Market intelligence platform Native AI has raised $3.5 million in its seed funding round led by JumpStart Ventures and Ivy Ventures.

Market intelligence and search platform AlphaSense has raised an additional $100 million for its $225 million Series D funding round led by CapitalG. 

Data collaboration platform Optable has closed a $20 million Series A round of funding from a syndicate of investors. 

Social impact measurement and monitoring platform Social Value Portal has raised £8.5 million in its Series B funding round led by Mercia and Beringea.