GWI Secures $180M for Audience Insights SaaS Platform

Audience insights software company GWI has raised more than $180 million in Series B funding, bringing the value of the firm to $850 million, the London-based company said Tuesday (Feb. 1).

The financing was led by Permira, the London-based global investment firm that banks on startups.

This investment is expected to advance GWI’s software as a service (SaaS) platform, extending its coverage to collect more data from consumers worldwide with a focus on underserved markets. GWI said it will also launch more products designed to boost existing sets of data.

In 2009, CEO Tom Smith launched GWI. Since 2018, with the $40 million in Series A financing from Stripes, the New York-based growth fund, GWI has tripled recurring revenue and employed nearly 400 workers globally, the company said.

GWI promises to deliver global insights that allows top brands, agencies, and media outlets to better understand their audiences. GWI’s software as a service platform provides coordinated data across geographies through a simple to use network achieving quicker insights and faster time to market.

“Companies today need an instantaneous view of their audience everywhere in the world,” Smith said in a statement. “The traditional approach of market research is not fit for purpose: too slow, incredibly expensive, and lacks the scale and detail needed.” GWI’s technology, he said, has solved that.

Last month, PYMNTS reported as inflation rises, companies are seeing cost increases in software contracts, delivery services, and other goods and services across the board. It has put procurement teams under pressure to source new suppliers or negotiate new terms with the ones they have already.

Read more: Rising Inflation Drives New Demand for Procurement Solutions

“Increases are coming in, and the first place the phone rings now is the procurement team and it’s, ‘Hey, what can you do about this?’” Jo Seed, chief operating officer of LogicSource, told PYMNTS.