Ideally secures $16M Series A to reinvent the $90b market research industry

Ideally, the market research platform used by Doordash, Telstra, Google and Asahi has raised $16m NZD in Series A funding as it looks to replace the slow, expensive, inaccessible model that has defined the industry for decades.

 

Launched in 2023, Ideally has grown from three founders in New Zealand to a company serving more than 30 countries around the world, now valued at over $100m NZD.

The Series A round was led by Shearwater Capital, and supported by Altered Capital, Icehouse Ventures, and Ecliptic VC, to fuel the startup’s expansion into North America and around the world.

The company has effectively replicated both the reliability of slow-moving traditional market research, and the convenience of fast turn-around surveys, to produce overnight real-human insights on what consumers want from brands.

“The best creative work has always come from genuinely understanding people while ideas are being developed, but that understanding has been locked behind months of waiting and six-figure budgets,” says James Donald, CEO of Ideally.

“The brands winning right now are the ones closest to their customers, and we built Ideally to give every team that closeness at the speed and scale that modern markets actually need. Every test compounds on the last, every insight gets smarter, and every brand that joins the platform gets a genuine competitive advantage.”

The platform is built on real consumer data, with AI sharpening both the questions asked and the analysis that follows.

More than 250 brands across APAC and the US use Ideally to discover where opportunity exists in their category, test and validate ideas early, and make faster decisions across the product and marketing lifecycle.

“Ideally is cost effective and easy to use, especially because the entire process has already been developed and tested, it doesn’t take as much brain power or time from your team,” says Leann Smith, Head of Marketing at Burger King New Zealand.

Expansion into the US, building on APAC growth

The investment will accelerate Ideally’s US expansion. The company opened a New York office in early 2026 and has since grown US revenue by 350%, with customers including Duckhorn, Tilray and Rémy Cointreau.

After launching in 2023, backed by the team behind New+Improved Ventures, Ideally has grown 750% between 2024 and 2026 and continues to scale rapidly across APAC and the US.

Zac Zavos, Managing Partner at Shearwater Capital, pointed to the product’s impact as the driver behind the investment: “Ideally has taken what was a long, expensive, waterfall research process and rebuilt it as something fast, iterative, and accessible. Once marketers experience the speed of overnight responses, it becomes indispensable.

“What impresses us most is how every aspect of this business has been built around customer delight, and the pace at which they’ve scaled revenue, customers, and team since inception reflects that. They’re moving fast and building the category as they go.”

Says McGregor Fea, Managing Partner at Altered Capital: “By helping companies to explore, test, and innovate in real time, the Ideally team are proving Jevons paradox within market research. We are excited to be supporting their global expansion.”

Icehouse Ventures, returning for this round, cited both the addressable market and Ideally’s capital efficiency: “We are seeing a fundamental restructuring of marketing departments globally, and Ideally is the infrastructure supporting that transition. Their ability to reach a $100M valuation in just over two years while maintaining world-class capital efficiency made this a clear investment for us,” says CEO Robbie Paul.

New product: Ideally Canvas

For decades, brands have relied on one-off research studies that take weeks to deliver and quickly become outdated as consumer behaviour shifts. That means insights often arrive too late to shape ideas, and are instead used to validate work that is already in motion.

Alongside the raise, Ideally is launching Ideally Canvas, a new product that gives brands a living, continuously updated picture of their consumer rather than a static snapshot.

Ideally Canvas is designed to bring consumer, category, and competitor understanding into the earliest stage of the creative process. Every study feeds a compounding dataset that builds over time, helping teams understand what consumers want more of, what is missing in their category, and which creative directions are likely to resonate.

Adds Donald: “Consumer sentiment moves in dog years these days. The biggest risk in marketing is making a bold call based on who your customer was half a year ago, let alone 18 months ago. Better decisions come from understanding how people are thinking, feeling and behaving right now, not relying on yesterday’s assumptions.”

Pictured (L-R): Ideally co-founders Joshua Nu’u-Steele, James Donald, Brendan Cerwin

 

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