FORT WORTH, Texas & PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TPG Growth, the middle market and growth equity investment platform of the global private investment firm TPG Capital, and SurveyMonkey, the leader in web-based survey solutions, today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MarketTools, Inc., a leading provider of software and services for market research and enterprise feedback management (EFM). Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
MarketTools is a privately held market research company whose products include Zoomerang, an online survey application; ZoomPanel, an online sample provider; TrueSample, a data quality assurance technology; Research Solutions, a custom market research provider; and CustomerSat, an enterprise feedback management platform.
Under the terms of the agreement, TPG will acquire MarketTools and transfer the Zoomerang, ZoomPanel and TrueSample businesses to SurveyMonkey in exchange for a minority stake in SurveyMonkey. TPG will separately retain and expand the Research Solutions and CustomerSat businesses.
“Zoomerang, ZoomPanel and TrueSample are great businesses that perfectly complement SurveyMonkey’s existing product portfolio,” said Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey CEO. “Our goal is to help people make better decisions with quality data. Now, SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang customers will be able to offer surveys to panels of 3 million people and use TrueSample’s powerful technology to ensure the quality of their research. We are excited to work with industry leaders like P&G and General Mills on data quality and believe that TrueSample will be better positioned as an independent industry solution now as a part of SurveyMonkey. We are thrilled to partner with the flexible and creative team at TPG Growth to bring these two great companies together, and look forward to continuing to grow and invest in these successful businesses.”
“We are delighted to be investing in two market-leading innovators in online market research, SurveyMonkey and MarketTools,” said William E. McGlashan, Jr., TPG Growth managing partner. “Separating Research Solutions and CustomerSat from the online self-service survey businesses should allow us to further grow these businesses and provide even more value to their customers. We are also excited to help build the SurveyMonkey platform with new and enhanced services.”
Scott Arnold, President and CEO of MarketTools, said, “We are pleased to have found the right partners for our respective businesses in TPG Growth and SurveyMonkey. We have pioneered online surveys, sample data quality and technology-enabled market research, building a broad global client base that includes 80% of Fortune 500 companies. We look forward to working with TPG Growth to build the Research Solutions and CustomerSat businesses, while collaborating with SurveyMonkey to innovate further around research technology.”
The Zoomerang online survey business will add approximately 1.7 million users to SurveyMonkey’s user base, which currently has over 9 million registered users. ZoomPanel will dramatically expand SurveyMonkey’s current panel offering, enabling customers to easily extend the reach of their surveys with access to more than 2.5 million high-quality respondents worldwide. Completed surveys are validated with TrueSample, a patent-pending data quality solution that ensures each respondent is real, unique and engaged and uses the industry-leading SurveyScore technology to measure and benchmark survey quality.
Some of MarketTools’ clients have already signaled support of SurveyMonkey’s and TPG Growth’s investment and growth strategy. “We are excited that TrueSample will now have access to SurveyMonkey's strong technology development capability and global presence,” said Joan Lewis, Global Officer, Consumer & Market Knowledge, Procter & Gamble. “This will help P&G deliver on its growth strategy to touch and improve more lives by further leveraging technology to ensure quality data. We look forward to partnering on global data quality initiatives and collaborating with TrueSample as a part of SurveyMonkey in that capacity.”
Gayle Fuguitt, Vice President, Consumer Insights, General Mills, said, "MarketTools has been a true innovator, creating new research technologies and enabling new insight solutions first on the Internet, and now in social, global and mobile. TrueSample addressed data quality in important new ways. Today's announcement is exciting because it strengthens both the sample solutions business and the custom research business, while increasing the independence, objectivity and scale of both. We look forward to continuing to innovate and grow with both SurveyMonkey and TPG Growth."
The transaction is expected to close in January 2012.
About SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is the world's largest survey company, with over 1 million survey responses every day. SurveyMonkey has revolutionized the way people give and take feedback, making it accessible, easy and affordable for everyone. The company was founded in 1999 with a focus on helping people make better decisions, and has built technology based on over 10 years of experience in survey methodology and web development. Customers include 99% of the Fortune 500, academic institutions, organizations and neighborhood soccer leagues everywhere.
The company has over 100 employees throughout the United States and Portugal, with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. For more information, visit www.surveymonkey.com.
About TPG Growth
TPG Growth is the middle market and growth equity investment platform of TPG, the global private investment firm. With $3.0 billion under management, TPG Growth targets investments in a broad range of industries and geographies, utilizing leveraged buyout, growth equity, and private investment in public equity (PIPE) structures. The firm is backed by the resources of TPG with $48 billion of assets under management. TPG Growth has offices in the United States, China and India. Please visit www.tpggrowth.com for more information.
About MarketTools, Inc.
MarketTools is the leading provider of software and services for enterprise feedback management (EFM) and market research. The company is focused on providing leading organizations the actionable customer insights they need to make better business decisions that lead to high-value business impact. As the first company to make online surveys widely available on the Web, MarketTools continues its market-leading position by providing the broadest range of powerful, accurate and integrated customer insight technologies that empower companies to become the most customer-centric organizations in their industries. The MarketTools premier portfolio of technology-based insight brands includes CustomerSat™, TrueSample®, Zoomerang®, and ZoomPanel®. MarketTools is a privately held company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco and European headquarters in London. For more information, please visit www.markettools.com.