MARU Group, a market and customer insights company backed by Primary Capital Partners, has acquired research technology platform Usurv for an undisclosed sum.
Usurv will subsequently be rebranded to Maru/Usurv and founders Martin Bysh and Guy Potter will remain with the company to oversee its growth trajectory and development.
Founded in 2011, Usurv is a survey platform which provides immediate access to respondents from a network of third party partner websites and sample providers, via online or mobile recruitment. The platform automatically fields short form surveys to those respondents, collecting, analysing and reporting the responses in a matter of hours, without the need for human intervention.
The acquisition of Usurv offers MARU an opportunity to acquire a proprietary technology platform, and thereby enhance the service offering of its operating companies.
Following Primary Capital’s initial equity investment last year, MARU Group has been actively pursuing its acquisitive growth strategy, having made three acquisitions in the past year. Following the acquisitions of eDigitalResearch (rebranded to Maru/edr) and North America-based VCR&C (rebranded to Maru/Matchbox), the group is consolidating its position as an upcoming player in the market research and insights market by further extending its capabilities. The group, which recorded revenues of more than USD50 million in 2016 employs over 400 people.
Ged Parton, CEO of MARU Group, says: “The ability to analyse data quickly and efficiently is of real importance to our clients and their business strategies. We’re excited about the strategic benefits this transaction will deliver to MARU Group, enabling us to provide our clients with an enhanced range of technologies, to complement our excellent advisory services.”
Martin Bysh, president of Usurv, adds: “We are delighted to join MARU Group. We believe in speed through automation and we wanted to work with a company that shares this vision and could help us realise our targets. As a financially sound, international group with an extremely wide range of services that complement our own offering, MARU Group was clearly the leading choice.”
