Cambiar directly counted $870m in new capital inflows but reckons this would comprise only about 80% of total investment on the assumption that a significant chunk of investments would have been kept private.

So its first Capital Funding Index estimates new capital investment at $1.1bn in 2011 – including the $270m Ipsos raised to fund its acquisition of Synovate.

After crunching the numbers, Cambiar’s Simon Chadwick said: “It appears that if you want to attract capital, you need to be based in the US and have the words ‘social media’ and ‘analytics’ in your business plan.

“Within these, mobile and online ad measurement seem to be stoking the most excitement among investors, as do data collection platforms of varying dimensions that utilise today’s dominant SaaS and social media technologies.”

Cambiar said the next round of the Capital Funding Index would explore the correlation between investment and in-market success.