YouGov acquires analytics firm Portent.IO

Founded in 2015, Portent.IO has a team of 11, based between London, Los Angeles, Poland, Israel and the Netherlands. The company focuses on the film and TV industry, processing digital, survey, marketing and social data to give clients predictive analytics models.

The acquisition will boost YouGov’s social monitoring and data science analytics offer. Following the deal, Portent.IO will be rebranded as YouGov Signal and its technology will be extended beyond the entertainment industry to other sectors. Hamish Brocklebank, Portent.IO’s co-founder and chief executive, will lead YouGov Signal.

YouGov has previously invested in Portent.IO, and data from YouGov Profiles and its panel has been used as part of the company’s offer.

Stephan Shakespeare, co-founder and chief executive at YouGov, said: “We were an early investor in Portent.IO as we saw that it brought something unique to the market – combining survey data with other digital touchpoints to provide a fully rounded view of what consumers think about films and TV programmes. In the future we see a much greater application of this technology across a wider array of clients and sectors.”

Brocklebank added: “When we founded Portent.IO our vision was to build a product simply to forecast box office revenue – however we soon realised that the potential was far greater than we anticipated. With YouGov’s early backing, we pivoted to provide digital and social data for movies and TV shows across 20+ markets. The team [at YouGov] understand the possibilities that the Portent.IO platform offers them, and I’m pleased the business will be in good hands.”

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.