Zinklar raises €5.5M in Series A to accelerate global rollout of its insights automation platform

This round, led by Caixa Capital Risc, will enable Zinklar to further enhance its platform, as well as attract new talents to fuel its global expansion, particularly to the US

Barcelona, Spain, July 13, 2022 – Zinklar, the leading insights automation platform, today announces a €5.5M ($5.7M) Series A funding round led by Caixa Capital Risc. The company welcomes new investors, including UK-based Beacon Capital, as well as EASO Ventures, Full Global Investments and CDTI Innvierte. With this round, a representative from Beacon Capital joins the board, alongside Caixa Capital Risc, Inveready and Zinklar’s founders. Together, they will bring their extensive experience in scaling-up technology businesses.

Zinklar’s insights automation platform provides critical information about consumer needs and preferences to improve businesses’ decision-making. Its intuitive interface taps into 140 million consumers in over 80 markets and offers in-depth understanding to develop meaningful segmentations, launch new products and services successfully, drive more effective advertising campaigns and grow brand value, among other uses. With Zinklar, businesses can foster conversations with consumers anytime, anywhere, and get actionable high-quality insights in as little as four hours. Zinklar’s automation efficiency gains allow companies to create up to 15 times as many research projects with the same resources. Any business can now bring the consumer’s voice into its day-to-day decision-making, almost in real-time.

Zinklar was founded by Jordi Ferrer (ex-Global Strategy and M&A Director at Kantar) and Borja Ormaechea (ex-Groupe SEB Marketing Director). The leadership team at Zinklar brings in-depth knowledge of the market research and consumer insights industry with over 50 years spent working at the likes of Kantar and Ipsos, combined with significant experience scaling SaaS businesses such as LinkedIn, Salesforce, Groupalia, Colvin and Box.com. These funds will allow Zinklar to double its team before the end of the year and bring in new talents.

This funding round enables Zinklar to further develop its platform by launching additional research solutions and continuing to strengthen its analytical capabilities to fulfill the needs of its most advanced users. Zinklar will also continue to democratize access to high-quality research, through real-time contextual advice, AI-based automation and live results benchmarking, which will empower both experts and non-experts to conduct surveys even faster and with more confidence.

Currently available in over 80 countries worldwide, Zinklar plans to further expand its presence globally, particularly in the US, as well as across Europe and Latin America. More than 300 leading businesses in packaged goods, health, banking, telecoms and many other verticals have already used Zinklar, including Reckitt, Google, Hershey’s, Panasonic, CaixaBank, The Body Shop, Bayer, Disney and AT&T.

“This series A funding is a major milestone for Zinklar. I am particularly excited as to what we will achieve with even more automation, in further democratizing access to best-in-class insights for all kinds of businesses. From leading brands that are now able to multiply their research and generate more insights across more geographies, to medium and smaller businesses that can now understand their consumers and make data-driven decisions in just a few hours. Our vision is that any professional from any company can access the best consumer insights at any moment, without having to be an expert, turning them into consumer-centric organizations,” said Jordi Ferrer, founder and CEO at Zinklar.

“Zinklar has helped hundreds of companies successfully adapt their products, brands and advertising to the evolving needs of consumers. This latest funding and the increased experience brought by our new investors in scaling businesses globally will allow Zinklar to be used more frequently by our existing clients and become an essential tool for the daily decision-making of new clients in many more markets. Democratizing access to insights is an enormous opportunity to create more value for consumers, for our clients and for our shareholders,” said Borja Ormaechea, founder and co-CEO at Zinklar.

“Caixa Capital Risc is proud to continue supporting Zinklar and to lead this strategic Series A funding, including financing from our new Criteria Venture Tech fund,” said Xavier Alvarez, managing director of Tech investments at Caixa Capital Risc. “We strongly believe in Zinklar’s disruptive insights automation platform, already endorsed by many international clients from diverse sectors. With this new funding, Zinklar will increase its leadership in the market and will continue shaping the evolution of the multi-billion-dollar insights and analytics industry.”

“Over the next decade, brands will face unprecedented challenges as they look to decode the shifts in consumer behavior in the new, liquidity-constrained environment. To pivot back to growth, they will have to press ‘reset’ on how they access consumer insights. Zinklar’s platform, built by two subject-matter-expert founders, offers a step-change in gaining consumer insights, combining market research orthodoxy with AI to automate the process and collapse the time and cost to insight. We are truly excited to partner with the two co-founders and co-CEOs, Borja and Jordi, to build the next category leader in consumer insights,” said Maria Dramalioti-Taylor, managing partner at Beacon.

Advisors:

Legal Advisors: Oscar Alegre, DWF-RCD

Financial Advisors: Oriol Juncosa, Unai Franco, White Peak Partners

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About Caixa Capital Risc

Caixa Capital Risc, CriteriaCaixa’s venture capital arm, is one of the main multi-stage venture capital investors in Spain, with more than fifteen years of experience and divestments to global technology companies such as Apple, Meta (Facebook) and Airbnb. It has more than €215 million ($219M) in assets under management in innovative companies in Europe, with a focus on Spain and Portugal.
Through its specialized technology funds, Caixa Capital Risc invests in innovative companies with a B2B business model and a strong technological component, led by committed entrepreneurs, with scalable value propositions and a vocation to build a global business. Caixa Capital Risc’s technology funds currently focus on sectors such as cybersecurity, Industry 4.0, DevOps, data and fintech among others.

www.caixacapitalrisc.es

About EASO Ventures

Easo Ventures is a Venture Capital firm founded in 2018 in San Sebastián (Gipuzkoa), formed of around 100 investors. Easo Ventures invests in startups and innovative businesses in the early stages, to help them set up their projects. Since 2018, Easo Ventures has raised two funds and invested in 49 innovative businesses.

www.easoventures.com

About Full Global Investments

A Venture Capital company based in the Basque Country and managed by Inveready, Full Global invests worldwide in other funds and co-invests with prominent funds in technological companies regardless of the sector or growth stage.

About the CDTI

The Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology is the body within the Spanish General State Administration that supports knowledge-based innovation; advising and offering public assistance for innovation through subsidies or partially reimbursable grants. The CDTI also internationalizes R&D business projects, corporate innovation of Spanish companies and organizations, and manages the Spanish participation in international R&D organizations, such as Horizon Europe and Eureka, and in the science and space industries. In addition, through the Innvierte Economia Sostenible initiative, it supports and facilitates the capitalization of technology companies.

www.cdti.es

About Beacon Capital

Beacon is a London-based VC investing in enterprise tech across Europe.

Beacon recognises that to build true global leading companies, founders need access to growth capital, as well as capital to de-risk their personal financial future. Beacon aims to be the partner of choice for founders, offering capital and support at the pre-scale-up phase as well as early liquidity to the founders once their business has advanced its commercial traction.

Beacon was founded by Maria Dramalioti-Taylor, a tech investor with ten years’ experience investing in software. It launched its first fund in 2021 and counts market leaders such as Cognism, Lifebit and Humanising Autonomy amongst its portfolio.

www.beaconcapital.co.uk

About Zinklar

Zinklar is the insights automation platform that allows brands to understand in-depth consumer preferences in a timely, easy-to-use and efficient manner. Zinklar’s intuitive interface enables access to over 140 million consumers in 80+ countries and gathers vital insights in as little as four hours. Supported by an expert market research team and with advanced quality controls powered by AI, businesses can conduct up to 15 times as many surveys as through other methods.

More than 300 leading brands in five continents have already used Zinklar to bring consumer understanding to the heart of their decision-making and accelerate their growth.

Created in 2016, Zinklar employs 60 staff and has raised €7.6M ($7.95M).

www.zinklar.com