We’ve raised $16M to reinvent research. Here’s what comes next:

That's a meaningful milestone for a company that launched in 2023 with three founders in New Zealand and a straightforward premise: brands shouldn't have to wait months and spend six figures to understand what their customers think.

When we started Ideally, we saw an industry that needed fixing. Research was slow, expensive, and locked away with experts. Brands weren't short of data. They were short of insight that teams could actually act on. So we built something different: real human insight, fast enough to fuel creativity, accessible enough for every team doing the work.

Less than three years later, we're a team of 50+ across Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, and New York. More than 250 brands around the world use the platform to test ideas, understand their categories, and make faster decisions. We've asked real consumers more than 48,000 unique questions about what they think and want.

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Here’s where we go to next

‍The investment accelerates everything we've been building: research gets embedded into everyday decisions across teams who've never had access to insight like this before. Complex approaches become intuitive workflows that anyone can use. And we're developing new AI approaches that - when combined with real human data - unlock product capabilities that didn't exist before.

Ideally Canvas is the next piece of the puzzle. Canvas gives you a live view of your category showing where demand is, which occasions are worth owning, and where competitors are leaving opportunity. It replaces expensive, slow, Usage & Attitude studies with a picture of your category that updates as consumer needs shift.

The biggest risk in marketing isn't making a bad call. It's making a confident call based on who your customer was six months ago. Canvas changes that. When teams have a live picture of their category, research stops feeling like a gate and starts feeling like a creative tool.

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The US play

‍The problem Ideally solves isn't regional. Insights teams stretched thin, impossible timelines, million-dollar decisions made on stale research. We're now scaling the solution in the US.

Our New York office is led by Co-Founder and CRO Josh Nu'u-Steele, and this raise accelerates our US team growth, go-to-market, and partnerships. The early traction has been strong - US revenue is up 350% since we opened earlier this year.

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Real brands, real results

‍For Treasury Wine Estates, we partnered to launch the Treasury Innovation Engine, a platform designed to accelerate growth through better consumer insight. TWE runs 50+ innovation projects simultaneously across six countries. They can now create a new product in less than 90 days, whereas in the past it took six months.

As a result of our partnership, TWE has developed four new products with impressive repeat purchases. Cali by Snoop is now one of the top 10 performing new product launches. Sorbet, Matua Bagnums, and Squealini are on shelves because the insight arrived fast enough to actually influence what they built.

"Treasury Innovation Engine is more than a tool, it's a strategic capability that puts data, insight, and innovation at the centre of every commercial decision. Our partnership with Ideally ensures this capability will continuously evolve with our business and markets."— Adele Felsch, GM Marketing, Strategy & Insights, Treasury Wine Estates

Elsewhere, Burger King uses Ideally to test limited-time offers before they go to market. Google brought Ideally into their process to connect user understanding with creative development. Nando's validates where real growth opportunities are before committing resources. And agencies like Omnicom and Dentsu use Ideally to sharpen their creative edge and turn research into thought leadership.

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Backed by investors who get it

‍The round was led by Shearwater Capital, the Australian-based founding investors behind WiseTech Global, with participation from Altered Capital, a New Zealand venture and growth investor with over $350M under management, returning investor Icehouse Ventures, NZ's largest early-stage investor, and Ecliptic VC.

"Ideally has taken what was a long, expensive process and rebuilt it as something fast, iterative, and accessible. Once marketers experience overnight responses, it becomes indispensable," said Zac Zavos, Managing Partner, Shearwater Capital.

“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.”

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Looking ahead

‍We built Ideally to be the platform where the world's most ambitious brands create with their customers. Not just test after the fact, but bring real people into the room while ideas are still being shaped.

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To the customers who trusted us early, the investors backing what we're building, and the team at New + Improved who helped get us started: thank you.

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— James Donald
Co-Founder and CEO

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