Sia Partners invests in French market researcher Happydemics
Sia Partners has teamed up with venture capital fund Adelie to channel €3 million into Happydemics – a tech-powered consumer research firm based in Paris.
By its own declaration, Happydemics has steady access to opinion data from 3 billion people – nearly half the world’s population – spread across over 140 countries. Clients can use this data to fully understand consumer preferences, without designing a study that would usually be bound by budgetary and geographical constraints.
Now backed by among others Sia Partners, Happydemics will fall under the consultancy’s startup financing programme Studio – a Paris-based investment fund aimed at supporting fast growing, business-to-business (B2B) tech startups. Having grown by a staggering 400% in 2020 alone, Happydemics certainly fits the bill.
The firm’s value proposition of data-driven consumer insights was already in the spotlight over recent years, although pandemic-induced economic conditions have propelled it into hyperspeed. With the ‘new normal’ around the corner, businesses are scrambling to understand consumer preferences of today and tomorrow.
Even Sia Partners collaborated with Happydemics back in September to understand the impact of Covid-19 on transportation habits, and is now taking the partnership to the next stage. CEO at SIa Partners Matthieu Courtecuisse said he was “thrilled” to announce the funding move.
“This investment is supporting an alliance between our two companies, to bring to our clients Happydemics technology to fill all their research needs, either quantitative or qualitative. We are already working together with some of our clients and it provides cutting edge solutions. During these troubled times, it's crucial to update our understanding of consumer trends or market disruptions.”
A two-way street: Sia Partners will deliver Happydemics solutions to its clients, while Happydemics will gain access to Sia Partners’ wide client and partner network, other budding tech enterprises, as well as strategy, operations, business and digital expertise from professionals at the 1,500-strong global consulting firm.
From strength to strength
Under the Studio funding model, Sia Partners combines with other investors, usually footing up to €500,000 of the total investment. In this case, the investment partner is Adelie – a venture capital fund based in Paris and London, and the combined sum amounts €3 million.
“The global market for consumer research is estimated at around $50 billion. Happydemics has developed a new generation of technologies that help companies quickly and reliably collect the opinions of very specific targets in 140+ countries,” noted Adelie’s co-founder Jean-Manuel Costa.
For Happydemics, this tops off $5 million from a funding round just six months ago, featuring investment fund Fair/e Family Office as well as French gaming specialist Voodoo. And this is just the latest turn in a long success story.
Since founding Happydemics in 2015, Tarek Ouagguini and Nicolas Trabuc have raised a total of roughly €11 million – starting with €2 million in 2017 from accelerator Axeleo and co-founder of ride sharing platform BlaBlaCar, followed by another €1 million plus from Kima Ventures – among others – in 2018.
Investors and businesses alike have realised the value of data-driven insights in recent years, and Happydemics has amassed an illustrious clientele including the likes of Total, Danone and BNP Paribas. With Covid-19 and the shifting consumption paradigm, this clientele is only expected to expand.
“We are convinced that our solution responds to strong market expectations, at a time of a health and economic crisis which will deeply reshuffle the cards in many other sectors: e-commerce, retail, industry, etc,” noted Ouagguini – a former marketing expert with more than a decade of professional experience. His colleague and co-founder Nicolas Trabuc has a background in client relations and event management.