Consumer insights platform Populix bags US$7.7m in funds

Indonesia-based consumer insights platform Populix has raised US$7.7 million in a Series A funding led by Intudo Ventures and Acrew Capital, with participation from Altos Ventures and Quest Ventures. Co-founder and CEO Timothy Astandu told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that 15% of the funding will go to marketing. He added that the platform will use mass marketing initiatives and partnership opportunities to "vastly increase people's awareness" of the brand. 

Populix will also use the funds to reinforce its efforts to digitise the entire data collection process while continuing to optimise existing products and release new services to enable anyone to make more informed decisions about their businesses. It also aims to recruit product and tech engineering experts to enhance data collection efforts and better meet the needs of more clients, as well as bring on marketing and regional expansion roles. Astandu said that it is actively hiring one senior marketing figure and several team members to expand its marketing capabilities in SEO, ads and mass marketing for its SaaS tool Poplite, as well as in client-side B2B marketing. 

Additionally, Populix plans to initiate regional expansion to neighbouring Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam by 2023, building off its dominant position in Indonesia, with a focus on Poplite - a pay-per-use SaaS research platform that allows anyone to build surveys and collect targeted and actionable business intelligence. Populix said in a statement that, in Q3 2022, Poplite will feature Survey Builder 2.0, which will enable customers to build more advanced surveys with additional question types and survey logic.

Also in the pipeline is a Millennial-focused data set, which will launch in Q4 2022. It will feature new subpanels that include niche categories like car-owners, working professionals, and other respondent profiles. Each dataset contains thousands of data points containing consumer consumption, online behaviour, lifestyle habits, emerging trends, and opinions and thoughts, among others, Populix said. 

Founded in January 2018, Populix is a mobile-based consumer insights platform that supports comprehensive research and data collection via its app, providing an intimate window into the preferences of Indonesian consumers. Over the past year, it revamped its Populix for Business service with an all-new app featuring improved UI/UX, providing more information to clients about projects completed through Populix. Through its app, Populix aspires to be a one-stop-shop for businesses to conduct a wide range of research, gaining critical insights and ultimately leading to better business outcomes.

In October 2020, Populix said its respondent app was the third trending lifestyle app on Playstore, resulting in four times new sign-up growth and a six times growth in in-app traffic during that period. Since then, the company has introduced new activities for respondents in the app, including games, daily polls, rebate programs, and machine learning training-related tasks. Respondents are able to receive monetised incentives for contributing their time and insights to Populix’s clients.

Intudo Ventures' founding partner Patrick Yip said that, as one of Populix's earliest backers, it is proud of how the company has matured and iterated its product for an ever-changing Indonesia. "Indonesia is a dynamic and rapidly evolving consumer market, changing at a speed that even local businesses have trouble grasping, making timely and accurate insights indispensable for the success of businesses both big and small," he added. 

Meanwhile, Theresia Gouw, founding partner, Acrew Capital said Populix shows that new business models can emerge in unexpected places and uproot preconceived notions of what consumer insights can do for businesses by adapting to the unique contexts of Indonesia. 

Separately, Populix raised US$1.2 million in pre-series A funding last May, led by Intudo Ventures with participation from new investors Quest Ventures and a number of strategic investors. According to Populix then, the proceeds were used to enhance marketing efforts, roll out new products, and bring on new hires. Co-founder and CEO Timothy Astandu told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE then that about 10% of the funding will go to marketing, especially for its automated self-service product Paket Hemat Populix. Prior to this round of financing, Populix raised a US$1 million seed round of financing led by Intudo Ventures. The company was also part of Gojek’s Xcelerate program’s second batch, recognising outstanding female founders.

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Consumer insights platform Populix bags US$1.2m funding, parks 10% under marketing