SurveyMonkey

Founder / s: Ryan Finley
Key people: Ryan Finley (Founder), Noreen Bergin (VP, Finance), Rebecca Cantieri (VP, Human Resources), Ada Chen Rekhi (VP, Product & Online Marketing), Chuck Brinker , Audience) and Chris Campbell (Senior Programmer)
Number of employees: 501 – 1k

SurveyMonkey is the world’s main online survey platform, with more than 3 million survey responses every day. SurveyMonkey has revolutionized the way people give and take feedback, making it accessible, easy and affordable for everyone. The company was founded in 1999 with a focus on Helping people make better decisions, and have built technology based on over 10 years of experience in survey methodology and web development. Customers includ e 99% of the Fortune 500, academic institutions, organizations and community soccer leisure everywhere.

The company has over 500 employees throughout the United States and Europe, with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. For more information, visit www.surveymonkey.com.

History

Founding

The company was mostly-owned by Ryan and Chris Finley until 2009, when it was sold to a private equity consortium. SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg died on May 1, 2015 while on vacation abroad with his wife, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg.

From August 3, 2015 Bill Veghte replaced Goldberg as SurveyMonkey CEO. Veghte held top posts at HP and Microsoft, and attended by Harvard with Goldberg. He credits the SurveyMonkey founder as a mentor. Veghte held the role for less than 6 months, due to strategic Differences with investors, main on where to allocate talent and resources. He was replaced by Zander Lurie in January 2016.

In 2010, the company received US $ 100 million in debt financing from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

In 2013, the company raised $ 800 million in debt and equity valuing the company at $ 1.35 billion.

Expansion [ edit ]

In 2012, the company launching a self-serve analytics platform called Audience, allowing customers to send their survey to a select group of respondents.

As of 2013, SurveyMonkey had 15 million users.

In September 2013, the company announced HIPAA-compliant features for premium subscription holders. In November 2013, the company announced a new enterprise product with additional management capabilities.

In 2014, the company raised $ 250 million in equity financing from Google Capital (now CapitalG), Tiger Global Management, Baillie Gifford, T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley.

In April 2015, the company announced a new data platform called Benchmarks. This allows users to compare their survey results against viol.

Partnerships

In February 2013, SurveyMonkey announced their partnership with API management platform Mashery. This is provided for the integration of third party apps and widgets into SurveyMonkey’s core tool. Currently, the company has provided with Eventbrite, MailChimp, Zendesk, Pick1 Zignal labs And others

In 2014, SurveyMonkey with partners with Salesforce and Marketo.

Acquisitions

The company has acquired three other survey tools, Precision Polling, Wufoo, and Zoomerang, as well as a 49.9 percent stake in the UK-based Clicktools. In August 2014, SurveyMonkey acquired Canadian company Fluidware, the creator of FluidSurveys.com and FluidReview.com.