Populix, an Indonesia-based homegrown consumer insights platform, announced Monday the closing of a $7.7 million Series A round of financing, led by Intudo Ventures and Acrew Capital, with participation from Altos Ventures and Quest Ventures.
Populix said in a statement that with this round of financing, it will reinforce its efforts to digitize the entire data collection process.
The company will continue to optimize existing products and release new services to enable anyone to make more informed decisions about their businesses.
To drive efforts forward, the company will also recruit product and tech engineering experts to enhance data collection efforts and better meet the needs of more clients, as well as bring on marketing and regional expansion roles.
The company plans to initiate regional expansion by 2023 to neighboring Southeast Asian countries, building off its dominant position in Indonesia, with a focus on the Poplite product line.
“People are no longer relying on instincts alone to run their businesses. At Populix we are building a world where both aspiring entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 CEOs alike can access fast and relevant data to drive business decisions,” said Timothy Astandu, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Populix.
Founded in January 2018 with a mission to make research easy and accessible for everyone to use, Populix leverages technology to build a one-stop shop research platform. By moving data collection online and on mobile device, it makes research fun and rewarding for the respondents, while simultaneously making research quicker, simpler, and more accurate for businesses.
45 percent of all Populix clients are first-time consumer insights users, reflecting the everyday utility of Populix in helping businesses better understand their customers and find product-market fit. To help validate the accuracy of respondents, Populix offers Popscore, a “credit scoring system” that assesses respondent quality by assessing how truthful and active a respondent is.
For experienced research buyers, Populix offers comprehensive datasets on a subscription basis that track different generational groups in Indonesia. The initial datasets focus on Indonesia’s Generation Z, with plans to launch a Millennial-focused data set in Q4 2022 and new subpanels that include niche categories like car-owners, working professionals, and other respondent profiles. Each dataset contains thousands of data points containing consumer consumption, online behavior, lifestyle habits, emerging trends, and opinions and thoughts, among others.
For mass audiences, Populix offers Poplite—a pay-per-use SaaS research platform that allows anyone to build surveys and collect targeted and actionable business intelligence. With Poplite, clients can choose from available templates depending on their business size or stage, specify target respondents based on their demography and launch a study on the platform or choose to build the survey from scratch. In the third quarter of 2022, Poplite will feature Survey Builder 2.0, which will enable customers to build more advanced surveys with additional question types and survey logic.
Since 2020, Populix has worked with over 1,500 clients ranging from Fortune Global 500 companies, governments, and major Indonesian conglomerates to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), academics, and individuals. The company’s revenue has experienced 3 times growth over the past year.
“Indonesia is a dynamic and rapidly evolving consumer market, changing at a speed that even local businesses have trouble grasping, making timely and accurate insights indispensable for the success of businesses both big and small. As one of Populix’s earliest backer, we’re proud of how the team has matured and iterated their product for an ever-changing Indonesia,” said Patrick Yip, Founding Partner, Intudo Ventures.
Meanwhile, Acrew Capital Founding Partner Theresia Gouw said :“Consumer insights is a space that has traditionally been dominated by large players with services that are often out of reach for many business owners. Populix shows that new business models can emerge in unexpected places and uproot preconceived notions of what consumer insights can do for businesses by adapting to the unique contexts of Indonesia.”
Altos Ventures Partner Richard Song, on the other hand, said ““Populix’s tech-driven consumer insights solutions offer unique perspectives on the Indonesia market, allowing anyone to run surveys with a high degree of accuracy and agility. Whether it be a Fortune 500 company looking to launch a new product or a local eatery coming up with a menu, Populix peers into the consumer mindset of Indonesians, providing businesses of all sizes with an invaluable tool to make better decisions and ultimately improve business outcomes.”
Quest Ventures Partner Jeff Seah also said :”Southeast Asia has become a prominent market for global corporations in fueling business growth, tapping into a new consumer class. For businesses new to the region, understanding local mindsets is imperative for success. Populix has demonstrated an uncanny ability to illustrate the preferences of Indonesian consumers and convert data points into actionable business insights. We look forward to continuing our support for Populix as it grows into the leading consumer insights platform for Indonesia and beyond.”
Indonesia startup studio alumni achieves over $22.7M funding