New Zealand startup Ideally has raised A$13.4 million in a Series A that values the consumer insights platform at $83m.
The round was led by Shearwater Capital, with support from Altered Capital and Icehouse Ventures.
Founded by James Donald, Brendan Cervin and Joshua Nu’u-Steele and emerging out of venture studio TRA Labs in August 2023, the AI-powered market research platform, which counts Doordash, Telstra, Google, Burger King and Asahi, among its clients is now used by than 250 brands across APAC and the US and recently opened an office in New York.
The startup previously raised $2.15m in November 2023, and then $5.5m in August 2024
Ideally lets brands test and validate ideas, and make faster decisions across the product and marketing lifecycle, for a fraction of the cost of a traditional research project.
McDonald, Ideally’s CEO, said the platform allows clients such as Treasury Wines Estate to test and refine new concepts that previously took nine months in just 90 days. The result is products such as Cali by Snoop and Matua Bagnums.
Get the best of Startup Daily straight to your inbox
Want to know the latest in startup news? Subscribe to our daily news and analysis coverage on what’s happening to ANZ startups, investors and the broader ecosystem. And best of all, it’s FREE!
By continuing, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
“The best creative work has always come from genuinely understanding real people, but that understanding has been locked behind months of waiting and six-figure budgets,” he said.
“The Australian brands winning right now are the ones closest to their customers, and we built Ideally to give every team that closeness at the speed and scale that modern markets actually need. Every test compounds on the last, every insight gets smarter, and every brand that joins the platform gets a genuine competitive advantage.”
US expansion planned
The new funds will go towards US expansion in the wake of revenue there growing by 350% since the New York office opened earlier this year thanks to clients such as Duckhorn, Tilray and Rémy Cointreau.
The startup is also launching Ideally Canvas to give brands a continuously updated picture of their consumers.
Donald said Ideally Canvas is designed to bring consumer, category, and competitor understanding into the earliest stage of the creative process and help marketing teams understand what consumers want more of, what’s missing , and which creative directions might resonate.
“Consumer sentiment moves in dog years these days. The biggest risk in marketing is making a bold call based on who your customer was half a year ago, let alone 18 months ago,” he said.
“Better decisions come from understanding how people are thinking, feeling and behaving right now, not relying on yesterday’s assumptions.”
Shearwater Capital managing partner Zac Zavos said Ideally has taken what was a long, expensive, waterfall research process and rebuilt it as something fast, iterative, and accessible.
“Once marketers experience the speed of overnight responses, it becomes indispensable,” he said.
“What impresses us most is how every aspect of this business has been built around customer delight, and the pace at which they’ve scaled revenue, customers, and team since inception reflects that. They’re moving fast and building the category as they go.”
For decades, brands have relied on one-off research studies that take weeks to deliver and quickly become outdated as consumer behaviour shifts. That means insights often arrive too late to shape ideas, and are instead used to validate work that is already in motion.
