From Sample to System: TA Associates' Investment in PureSpectrum

Author

Dan Entrup
January 12, 2026

On January 7th, 2026, market research technology company, PureSpectrum, announced a strategic partnership with private equity firm TA Associates.

While the headline framed the transaction as a partnership, the significance runs deeper. TA’s history of backing data-driven information services businesses suggests this is less about incremental scale and more about positioning PureSpectrum for its next chapter, evolving from a programmatic sample platform into foundational research infrastructure, potentially picking up some other capabilities and industry players along the way.

PureSpectrum sits at a critical junction in the market research ecosystem, orchestrating access between buyers and respondent supply while increasingly embedding quality, automation, and control into that process. As research budgets come under greater scrutiny - amongst other things, driven by concerns around fraud, respondent fatigue, and auditability - the value shifts away from raw access toward platforms that can enforce standards, govern eligibility, and make quality measurable across time rather than at a single survey moment.

With a track record spanning information services and workflow-embedded data platforms, TA is well positioned to help PureSpectrum institutionalize its role in the research stack, expanding from routing respondents to governing how research is planned, executed, and defended. The partnership marks an inflection point where market research technology begins to resemble infrastructure, not just tooling, with PureSpectrum positioned at the center of that transition.

PureSpectrum’s History

PureSpectrum runs a programmatic marketplace and sample management platform connecting market research firms, brands, and insights practitioners to respondent supply. Launched in 2016, the company was founded by Michael McCrary, one of the leading experts in market research supply. Michael previously built some of the other largest players in the industry, serving as SVP, North America at Greenfield Online, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2008 with the survey business being subsequently sold to Toluna. He was then Managing Director, North America at Cint before joining Federated Sample as President. Federated Sample rebranded in 2015 to Lucid, and was ultimately acquired by Cint in late 2021.

PureSpectrum has raised $61.6M in venture funding, including $37M in growth capital in 2023 and $17M in a Series B in 2021, both rounds from Arthur Ventures.

Headquartered in Westlake Village, California, the company has 7 offices across 6 countries. PureSpectrum had a big wave of promotions in January 2025, including:

Notable recent outside hires include Nader Kobeissi, who joined in November 2025 as SVP, Middle East & Africa. He was previously Interim COO of mypinio, CEO of Research On Mobile, and GM, MENA at Toluna.

The Exchange Business

Market research sample exchanges have evolved significantly over the last half-decade as digital research platforms have moved from simple access points for respondent panels to complex, automated ecosystems designed to improve speed, quality, and oversight. Historically, buying survey respondents involved contracting individual panels or brokers and often manual matching. Sample exchanges centralized that process by creating programmatic marketplaces where buyers can automatically source respondents that meet specific quotas and targeting criteria through APIs and self-service dashboards.

A major turning point came in 2021. Cint, one of the largest global sample marketplaces, went public on Nasdaq Stockholm in February and acquired programmatic research platform Lucid for about $1.1B in October. Both deals signaled validation of the research-tech model and the strategic importance of scalable, automated sample delivery in the insights stack. Over the next few years, the industry accelerated investments in automation and quality controls, with platforms like PureSpectrum building respondent-level scoring systems to proactively evaluate sample integrity and reduce fraud, and others integrating deeper analytics and field-management capabilities.

Like many data businesses that went public in 2021, the public-markets have not treated the business model so favorably. Lucid founder and another early pioneer of programmatic sample, Patrick Comer, stepped in as Group CEO in September 2024. Cint also raised additional capital through a SEK 596M ($60M) rights issue to support its new strategy and platform growth while continuing to operate as a publicly traded company on Nasdaq Stockholm (STO: CINT).

Throughout this period, the broader market research industry has grappled with rising quality concerns. Fraud, bots, duplicate respondents, and decreasing attention spans have spurred sample exchanges to invest in capabilities like fraud detection, deduplication, longitudinal respondent profiling, and automated routing based on performance signals. Meanwhile, buyers have increasingly demanded speed and transparency, pushing exchanges to integrate feasibility forecasting, real-time project dashboards, and tighter integrations with survey execution workflows.

As a result, modern sample exchanges are no longer “just” marketplaces. They are positioning themselves as research infrastructure that supports data governance, quality assurance, and end-to-end fielding. Platforms vary in their focus, from pure sample execution to embedded quality scoring and marketplace orchestration, but all share a trend toward combining automation, analytics, and quality enforcement to meet evolving research team expectations.

M&A Along The way

The company has been acquisitive since 2020, with acquisitions including:

September 2020 - acquired Inteligx, a market research services provider helping companies by collecting multi-modal and multi-country data, sourcing hard-to-reach audiences, and delivering insights via online dashboards.. The company was founded in 2015 by Todd Myers (currently COO of PureSpectrum) and Ian Kiernan.

May 2021 - acquired Instant Insights from Upwave (formerly Survata). Instant Insights provides tools and services to run fast consumer insights projects.

May 2022 - acquired Dalia, a global programmatic supplier. Dalia was founded in 2013 by Nico Jaspers, Fernando Guillén Suárez, and Hanns-Christoph Leisewitz. The company raised $8.5M in Series A and Seed rounds.

About The Investor

TA Associates was founded in 1968 by Peter Brooke, who later went on to found private equity firms, Advent International and BPEA. Initially the firm focused on earlier stage venture deals.

While past performance doesn't guarantee future results, there are some investors who have the golden touch.

Jason Mironov joined the firm in 2012 after completing his MBA. In 2014, he worked on a deal to acquire a 50% stake in DiscoverOrg, for $90M. DiscoverOrg rebranded to ZoomInfo and went public in June 2020, valuing TA’s stake at $6.12B (PE Hub), the largest paper return in the firm’s history. Under TA’s ownership and prior to going public, DiscoverOrg acquired 6 companies (iProfile, Tellwise, RainKing, NeverBounce, Zoom Information, and Komiko).

In 2022, in a deal led by Mironov and fellow Managing Director, Todd Crocket, TA acquired a majority stake in Green Street from WCAS. Green Street is a provider of commercial real estate research, news, data, analytics, and advisory services. The company has made 4 acquisitions since the TA investment (College House, IJ Global, Locatus, and Local Data Company). In the company’s 40th anniversary press release in September 2025, CEO Jeff Stuek said “as we look ahead to the next 40 years, we’re focused on expanding into new markets, acquiring complementary capabilities, and delivering the most forward-looking data and analytics to identify tomorrow’s opportunities.”

Mironov led the deal team for the PureSpectrum investment, joined by Dylan Hallman (SVP), Pedro Saltos (Associate), and Jarrod Sweet (Associate).

What Could Happen Next: A Staged Approach

From platform to policy layer - PureSpectrum already automates access to respondents. The next step is making quality, identity, and eligibility enforceable by default, not configurable after the fact. This means expanding quality signals from point-in-time scores to longitudinal respondent histories, turning quality rules into pre-access gates, not post-survey diagnostics, and giving buyers the ability to encode research policies directly into the platform

Quality becomes an operating system - as adoption deepens, quality stops being a feature and becomes infrastructure. PureSpectrum evolves from a routing engine into a research control plane:

  • Feasibility becomes predictive, not reactive

  • Pricing becomes benchmarked, not negotiated in the dark

  • Routing decisions become automated, auditable, and repeatable

Workflow gravity and revenue expansion - once PureSpectrum controls how research is routed, the natural expansion is into how research is executed. This phase is characterized by deeper workflow integration (survey ops, feasibility, field management) and reduced vendor sprawl as customers consolidate around fewer platforms (and the industry consolidates via M&A).

Market bifurcation and budget migration - As quality becomes enforceable and auditable, the market naturally segments.

  • Routine, low-risk research continues to optimize for speed and cost

  • High-stakes research (B2B, executive, regulatory-sensitive, brand-critical) migrates toward platforms that can prove integrity

Budgets follow accountability. PureSpectrum has an opportunity to increasingly own the highest-risk studies, the most valuable audiences, and the most regulated buyers. This creates a structural and margin advantage that compounds over time.

Research infrastructure, not research tech - in the final stage, PureSpectrum becomes something subtly but fundamentally different:

  • Buyers stop “choosing vendors” and start setting policies

  • Respondent access becomes permissioned, not open

  • Quality becomes proactive, not forensic

  • Research decisions become traceable, defensible, and auditable

PureSpectrum shifts from enabling research to governing it. This is the inflection point where switching costs spike, category leadership becomes durable, and the platform becomes acquirable or indispensable.

Additional monetization in an AI world - this is less of a staged timing, but something that can be done at various stages. PureSpectrum already lists Training Data products on its website. The opportunity here near-term is huge, with foundational model companies paying millions for robust training data, especially derived from human insight and activity. Mercor recently raised $350M at a $10B valuation in a Series C, with $500M ARR.

Who Happens Next: Potential M&A

Below is a practical bolt-on M&A map for PureSpectrum, organized by why each category matters to the platform they’re clearly trying to build. This is not a “who’s for sale” list.

Identity, verification & respondent integrity - own the trust layer. This creates a systemic deterrent of fraud, not just a filter.

  • AggKnowledge, yes I have a bias here.

  • Data Quality Co-Op, $1.3M Seed round led by Kickstart in 2024.

  • Rep Data, growth investment from Mountaingate Capital in 2025. Rep Data acquired Research Defender in 2023.

  • Verisoul, $9M Series A led by High Alpha in 2025.

First-party & specialty panel ownership - improve margin control, quality, and capture more wallet. This does however come with a risk of sample-partner relationships souring.

  • Emporia, $4.7M Seed round led by Founder Collective in 2024.

  • ETR, no outside funding information found.

  • Paradigm Sample, no outside funding information found.

  • Potloc, CA$35M Series B led by Investissement Quebec in 2022.

Industry incumbents - this may not make financial sense, but either with leverage or perhaps if any of these businesses are looking to offload a business unit.

  • Dynata, largest equity holders include Bain Capital, BlackRock, and First Eagle.

  • Sago (formerly Schlesinger), investment from Gauge Capital in 2019.

B2B and investor-grade - move upstream in B2B capabilities and investment management clientele via acquisition of expert networks.

  • proSapient, $10M Series A led by Smedvig Ventures in 2021.

  • Arbolus, $20M Series B led by Kayne Anderson in 2024.

  • OfficeHours, $5M Seed round led by CRV in 2021.

  • Zintro, $3.2M venture round in 2015.

Survey ops, workflow & research execution - move from marketplace to operating system.

Closing Remarks

Looking ahead, market research sample exchanges are entering a more consequential phase of their evolution. The past five years proved the value of scale, automation, and programmatic access, but they also exposed the limits of marketplaces optimized primarily for liquidity.

As buyers place greater emphasis on research integrity, auditability, and accountability, the category is shifting from simple access toward governance, quality enforcement, and workflow integration. The next generation of winners will not be defined by how many respondents they can source, but by how effectively they can control eligibility, measure trust over time, and embed themselves into how research decisions are made.

The TA Associates name associated with this industry comes at a time it is needed most. A marquee institutional name will have ripple effects and caused renewed attention on the industry.

DISCLAIMER: This commentary is based on industry experience, publicly available information, and general market observations. It reflects forward-looking perspectives on market dynamics and should not be interpreted as factual assertions about, or endorsements of, any specific company, strategy, or outcome. All views expressed are illustrative and analytical in nature and do not represent the positions, intentions, or performance of any individual organization.