Venture backing and new CEO for SurveyMonkey

US— SurveyMonkey, which provides ‘do-it-yourself’ online survey tools, has won a majority investment from a group led by Spectrum Equity Investors and Bain Capital Ventures.

As part of the deal, Dave Goldberg, former head of Yahoo’s Launch music business, becomes SurveyMonkey’s CEO and a minority investor. Goldberg is also an ‘entrepreneur in residence’ with venture firm Benchmark Capital.

The firm claims its tools have been used to create six million surveys, generating more than 200 million responses.

Victor Parker of Spectrum Equity Investors said: “We believe SurveyMonkey is poised for significant growth and are pleased that Dave, who brings 15 years of experience in consumer content and subscription businesses and a successful leadership track record, will assist us and the company’s existing team as we scale the business.”

As DIY survey tools become more accessible and sophisticated, Forrester Research predicted in a report last year that this would be one of the factors to “keep a lid on on primary research vendors’ pricing power”.

Author: Robert Bain

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