- Initially, the company was named Alpha in 2014 which was rebranded to Feedback Loop about 6 months ago.
- The CEO of the company has provided a term called “research guardrails” which is the company’s core selling point.
Various brands research over long periods and generally at irregular intervals. Feedback Loop works with a different approach to make a market research. An ongoing process is aligned with “real-time” demands. It works to change attitudes and opinions through continuous consumer input.
Company history:
The company was founded out of New York in 2014 as Alpha. Later, it was rebranded into Feedback Loop about 6 months ago. It serves for the automation of various stages involved in the conduction of research surveys. It is used to collect feedback on behavior and preferences or to A/B test new ideas. The concepts are tested before, during, and after the product development phase. For instance, a business can find out comparisons between various marketing messages slogans on new product features and determine how the end-user understands a particular phrase or responds to a specific proposed design.
The company’s core selling point:
One of the core selling points of the platform is that it allows non-researchers within a company to collect feedback through the introduction of “research guardrails” provided by Feedback Loop CEO Rob Holland.
Statement from the CEO:
“Our platform eliminates common human errors that have historically made traditional researchers shy away from letting business teams conduct their research,” Holland said. “For instance, we eliminate the need for manual analysis of insights by surfacing the most relevant findings.”
Any company looking for the development of new services or products is required to understand the market they are chasing. This understanding process should happen before they get too far into the product development path which is where Feedback Loop comes in.
“Getting feedback retroactively is a failed approach, as evidenced by the recent Quibi saga,” Holland said. “Foresight [is better than] hindsight.”
Feedback Loop claims to have several notable clients across various domains. It includes names like Uber, Farmers Insurance Group, Lending Tree, and Humana.
Panels:
Feedback Loop uses API to channel into audiences, segmented by third-party panel providers via marketplace exchanges such as Lucid and CINT. “Our users select the demographic and behavioral criteria of their desired audiences, and from there the platform automatically screens and selects the right people,” Holland explained. “This process traditionally requires several time-consuming and manual steps — our technology automates all of these so that clients can launch their studies immediately.”
How the company functions:
They prompt the participants to begin a study while Feedback Loop collects the responses. It checks and organizes the data into reports that are replete with the insights.
Currently, Feedback Loop’s basic data integrations happen with panel marketplace exchanges although it can connect with popular enterprise tools like slack to enable the users to receive the alerts while the study results are ready. The company also plans to introduce integrations that penetrate deeper into the research ecosystem to make “generating and sharing insights even more frictionless” according to Holland.
Other players include Suzy which is another New York-based startup that raised $34 million recently. Such fundraising events imply that real-time consumer feedback tools are in great demand. According to Holland Feedback Loop for differentiator is that the technology “infuses research philosophy into a platform that automates 30 plus things” while introducing a framework that enables the non-researchers to use it.
The funding and investment details:
The company’s $14 million investment closes off its series-A round of $24 million. Feedback Loop opened the round more than three years ago with a $10 million cash injection. It was followed by two undisclosed follow-ups of $7.5 million and $6.5 million. Crosslink Capital led this round of funding. It has invested in major cloud companies previously such as Equinix and Coupa and includes participation from Spider Capital.
