Acquisitions/transactions 

Medical equipment and services provider Spacelabs Healthcare has acquired predictive analytics company PeraHealth. 

Online survey and research services company QuestionPro has acquired health care innovation and go-to-market commercialization consultancy Pundit Consultantz. 

E-commerce acceleration platform MikMak has agreed to acquire e-commerce enablement and analytics software company Swaven.

Data and analytics software company Quantexa has acquired AI and natural language processing company Aylien to improve its customers’ ability to collect and analyze unstructured text data.

Marketing and advertising agency Dentsu Group has agreed to acquire omnichannel digital marketing production company Tag Worldwide Holdings to offer more marketing, technology and consulting offerings.  

Omnichannel product content solution provider 1WorldSync has acquired e-commerce technology and analytics company Webáta.

Marketing agency Dentsu Group has acquired B2B experience and commerce agency Shift7 Digital. It will join its customer experience management company Merkle. 

Commerce media company Criteo has acquired omnichannel retail media company Brandcrush to improve its solution offerings. 

Terminus Capital Partners has acquired insights software platform Voxco for an undisclosed sum. 

Primary research platform BWG Strategy has acquired primary research firm OTR Global to expand its research services.  

CRM and marketing technology company Splio has acquired SaaS predictive marketing company Tinyclues. 

Insights and media agency Hotspex has acquired a majority stake in Shanghai-based strategic brand consultancy The Silk Initiative to offer clients insights and deeper understanding of consumers across the APAC region. 

Data-driven experience agency Velir has acquired data and analytics consultancy Brooklyn Data Co. to expand its data capabilities.

Alliances/strategic partnerships    

The Market Research Institute International has created a formal supporting agreement with the QRCA.  

Panel management platform Sample Ninja has partnered with Research Defender to improve its fraud detection capabilities. 

Qualitative data analysis software NVivo and online qualitative technology and services company itracks have partnered to improve the data collection and analysis gap.

The Insights Association, MRS, SampleCon and ESOMAR will collaborate to address ongoing and emerging risks to data quality. The organizations will focus on fraud detection, identification and mitigation bias, research participant experience improvement and online and in-person qualitative research data quality.  

Health care research agency Holden Healthcare has partnered with health care research company Seed Planning to improve physician panel access throughout the APAC region. 

Kantar has partnered with audience intelligence platform Audiense and Coca-Cola to launch the advanced analytics solution Digital Mirror. 

Smoothie King has selected customer and employee experience company Medallia as its experience platform. 

The Market Research Society has added The Audience Agency as an accredited company partner.

Independent technology company PubMatic has partnered with Comscore’s programmatic targeting business Proximic by Comscore to integrate its predictive audiences and content targeting solutions to its platform. 

Data service company Redslim and Singapore-based e-commerce data startup Digital Commerce Intelligence have partnered to integrate real-time e-commerce data from Southeast Asia.  

Insights video platform Discuss and market researcher Ipsos have formed a partnership to combine qualitative market research and technology to build empathy and to amplify the voice of the consumer.  

MMR Research Worldwide has partnered with conversational AI company Nexxt Intelligence, integrating its inca SmartProbe API service to its consumer surveys to advance its research capabilities. 

Association/organization news 

The Advertising Research Foundation has called for a migration away from TV households and towards TV-accessible households as a basis of TV measurement to account for viewing dynamic shifts led by broadband access and mobile devices. 

The Market Research Benevolent Association's Annual Fundraising Charity Auction raised £5,019.

Awards/rankings 

Qualitative research and insights consultancy KNow Research recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. 

In-store behavior analytics company VideoMining has received the patent for optimizing in-store display location from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 

WeConnect International has certified insight translation agency Empower Translate as a Women's Business Enterprise. 

Behavioral research and strategy firm InsightsNow has received the ISO 27001:2013 data security certification. 

Customer experience management platform Sprinklr has been named a Challenger in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Conversational AI Platforms report.  

QRCA has named Monica Marinescu and Malebo Lesejane as the 2023 winners of the Global Qualitative Researchers’ Award.

C&C Market Research recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. 

New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions 

Market research and data provider Schlesinger Group has rebranded as Sago, launching a new website and visual identity. 

BritainThinks and WorldThinks have combined under the new brand Thinks Insight & Strategy.  

Custom market research solutions provider MAi Research has rebranded to Marketing Analysts to focus on tailored approaches to AI-driven text analytics. 

Consumer intelligence company NielsenIQ has rebranded to NIQ.

Information Resources Inc. and The NPD Group have rebranded as Circana following their 2022 merger. 

Online panel provider Intra Research has expanded its panel coverage to 18 European countries. 

Media testing and consumer insights platform EmotionTrac has expanded its panel to 30 million U.S. consumers.

Consumer insight and collaboration agency InSites Consulting has rebranded to Human8.

Consumer intelligence platform Synthesio has rebranded to Ipsos Synthesio. 

Research and advisory company Oxford Business Group has launched a new research terminal for its products and services on emerging markets and investment opportunities. 

Research company earnings/financial news 

Comscore has released its fourth-quarter and full-year results. It reported a revenue of $98.2 million, a net income of $0.1 million and adjusted EBITDA of $12 million for Q4 and a revenue of $376.4 million, a net loss of $66.6 million and adjusted EBITDA of $37 million for its full year.

Online survey platform OnePulse has secured a £420,000 follow-on investment from Blackfinch Ventures to expand its market survey platform.

Finnish short-video analytics platform Exolyt has raised €450,000 in its pre-seed funding round led by Trado Capital and Founder’s Edge to offer TikTok analytics features for business end-users and to expand its sales and marketing. 

Forecasting analytics startup Ramp has raised $5 million in its seed funding round led by AlbionVC and Eurazeo to create customizable forecasts.  

Software development company Attio has raised $23.5 million in its Series A round of funding led by Redpoint Ventures, Balderton Capital and Point Nine to expand its CRM data layer and product development. 

Marketing platform Soci Inc. has raised $120 million from JMI Equity, Vertical Venture Partners, Blossom Street Ventures and Renew Group Private Limited to create AI-powered marketing products.  

Experience management software company Qualtrics has entered a definitive agreement to be acquired by technology investing company Silver Lake in collaboration with Canada Pension Plan Investments for approximately $12.5 billion.     

Consumer insight infrastructure company Monnai has raised $6.5 million in its Series A round of funding led by Tiger Global. 

Momentive has agreed to be acquired by a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group for approximately $1.5 billion. 

B2B SaaS revenue engine Houseware has raised $2.1 million in its seed funding round led by Tanglin Venture Partners with participation from GTMfund and Better Capital. 

Marketing analytics startup Nexoya has raised $5 million in its Series A funding round from BlackSheep MadTech Fund to further develop its AI platform.

Market research and insights company PureSpectrum has completed its $37 million equity round of funding from its capital partner Arthur Ventures. 

Data quality monitoring company Sifflet has closed its $12.8 million Series A funding round led by EQT Ventures.