Beringer Capital announced the acquisition of a majority stake in one of Canada's fastest growing companies, Dig Insights. Here’s an inside look at what Dig Insights does, how it’s found success and the company's next stage of growth.
What Happened: Beringer Capital acquired a majority stake in Dig Insights, a Toronto-based consumer insights and research company.
“From our fist meeting with the Dig Insights team, we could tell there is an incredible cultural fit. We’re thrilled to partner with a company that has disrupted the traditional market research space with its advanced technology, sophisticated analytical capabilities and deep roster of high-quality talent,” Beringer Capital Vice President David Saunders said.
“They are ready for their next phase of growth, backed by Beringer’s deep network and trusted expertise in sales, business development and market expansion.”
Dig Insights CEO and co-founder Paul Gaudette told Benzinga it was important to have a partner that understood the insights space with a proven track record of building companies.
Gaudette pointed to the success Beringer has had scaling Adweek and Blue Acorn.
The Dig Insights CEO said Beringer was the partner of choice for three reasons: culture fit, experience and specialty area focus.
“We look forward to building on their impressive brand and collaborating closely with the Dig team on growing its client base and further building out the company’s solutions across the entire innovation lifecycle,” Beringer Capital Chair and Managing Partner Perry Miele said.
About Dig Insights: Founded in 2010 by four friends, Dig Insights offers market research and strategy consulting and solutions to brands across a wide range of sectors. The company is one of the fastest growing companies in Canada.
“We founded Dig because we knew the market research industry could do better and over the last decade, our team, partners and clients have helped us on our mission to build the world’s smartest insights company — but this is just the beginning,” Dig Insights CEO Gaudette said.
Dig helps clients understand consumer behavior.
“We knew that there was a lot of opportunity in the insights space,” Gaudette told Benzinga, nodding to the fact that it’s a $38B dollar industry as of 2021.
Dig Insights offers tech-enabled insights by creating tools and approaches to help consumers interact with technology and provide feedback. The company’s tech-enabled insights help clients build analytics that understand what the consumer is saying, he said.
“We leverage the latest in technology and advanced analytics to uncover the insights and opportunities that other agencies might miss.”
The company counts around 90% of its annual revenue from the North American market and 10% from international markets. The North American market is split fairly even between the U.S. and Canada, according to Gaudette.
Growing The Business: One of the items that has helped Dig Insights find success was the launch of its proprietary digital SaaS solution, Upsiide. The company launched Upsiide in 2020.
“We created a new approach to evaluating ideas,” Gaudette said.
Upsiide was built from scratch with an interface similar to Tinder to have consumers evaluate ideas more efficiently. Gaudette said Upsiide is a different type of offering that's used internally, with clients operating and executing on the platform on their own.
What’s Next: Gaudette said there is a massive shift in the insights space, with businesses needing to be more consumer centric and leverage data to see how it could impact the business.
“That is ultimately going to determine whether or not companies will be successful,” Gaudette said. “The more in tune they are with those changes in consumer behavior, the more likely they will be able to be good investments.”
Dig Insights has operations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, with research engagements in over 46 countries. The acquisition is expected to help the company expand and reach more global clients.
Gaudette said it was the right time to seek a financial partner for Dig Insights for the next phase of growth after years of no financial assistance and being “fully bootstrapped.”
“We wanted someone to help us with our expansion and scaling.”
Gaudette said the partnership can help Dig Insights get the Upsiide platform into more hands and unlock the company's “untapped potential.”
Related Link: Beringer Capital Acquires Majority Stake In Benzinga: What You Need To Know
Photo: Dominic Atkinson, left, Paul Gaudette, Ian Ash and Michael Edwards of Dig Insights.
