A market research platform designed to give brands faster access to real consumer feedback is being used to test ideas earlier in the product and marketing process.
Ideally, a Kiwi-founded company, says in a release it has raised $16m in Series A funding, led by Shearwater Capital, with support from Altered Capital, Icehouse Ventures and Ecliptic VC, as it looks to expand into North America.
Launched in 2023, the company says its platform is now used across more than 30 countries, with applications including testing product concepts, packaging, and marketing ideas before they are taken to market.
The platform is designed to combine traditional research approaches with faster turnaround insights, delivering results overnight based on consumer responses.
“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.
Ideally says its system uses real consumer data, with AI applied to refine both the questions asked and the analysis that follows, allowing teams to make decisions earlier in the development process.
More than 250 brands across APAC and the US are using the platform, according to the company, including in product development and marketing validation.
“Ideally is cost effective and easy to use, especially because the entire process has already been developed and tested,” says Leann Smith, head of marketing at Burger King New Zealand.
The company says the funding will support expansion in the United States, where it has opened a New York office and is growing its customer base.
“Ideally has taken what was a long, expensive, waterfall research process and rebuilt it as something fast, iterative, and accessible,” says Zac Zavos, managing partner at Shearwater Capital.
Alongside the funding, the company has launched Ideally Canvas, a product designed to provide a continuously updated view of consumer behaviour rather than relying on one-off studies.
Ideally says each study contributes to a growing dataset, allowing brands to track changing preferences, identify gaps in their category, and assess which ideas are more likely to resonate.
“Consumer sentiment moves in dog years these days,” Donald says. “Better decisions come from understanding how people are thinking, feeling and behaving right now, not relying on yesterday’s assumptions.”
