Led by managing director Peter-Paul Laumans, the founding companies are Multiscope in Holland (where Laumans works as business development manager), Mo’web Research in Germany, Denmark’s M3 Research, Panelbase.net in the UK, Directpanel Research in France and Italy’s SWG.

The partners together operate panels in 15 countries covering 1.4m Europeans. Panelteam also has a sales office in the US, headed by Tom Fuller of Mo’web.

In setting up Panelteam, Laumans said it was his aim to pull together a group of trusted suppliers in a bid to ensure quality in multi-country online surveys.

The launch also serves to give the individual players an edge with which to compete against the rapidly growing international online fieldwork suppliers, following a spate of consolidation in the sector last year, with Toluna buying Greenfield Online and its European subsidiary Ciao Surveys, and E-Rewards acquiring Research Now.