Futurum + ETR

For years, the technology research ecosystem has been fragmented. Traditional analyst firms sold opinions, data firms sold signals and statistics, survey companies sold panel, media companies sold audience (and ads), event companies sold access, and expert networks sold conversations.

This week, the enterprise technology intelligence market just got a lot more interesting. The Futurum Group announced a definitive agreement to acquire Enterprise Technology Research (ETR).

About Futurum

Futurum was founded in 2016 by technology distribution executive Daniel Newman. The company was established as an independent research, analysis, and advisory firm focused on the technology sector. Futurum positioned itself differently from legacy analyst firms from the start: more media-native, more operator-focused, more digital-first, and significantly more integrated across research, GTM, and influence.

The company has made multiple strategic acquisitions, particularly active in 2023.

August 2022 - Wainhouse Research, a data & analytics firm specializing in the digital workplace communications and collaboration segments. Wainhouse was founded in 1999 by Marc Beattie.

January 2023 - Dash Network, a B2B research, media, and advisory business focused on the SaaS, AI, and customer experience (CX) markets. Dash Network was founded in 2021 by Clint Wheelock and Jonathan Keller.

January 2023 - Evaluator Group, a technology research and advisory company covering information management, storage and systems. Evaluator was founded in 2009 by Camberley Bates.

May 2023 - Visible Impact, a B2B marketing services firm. The company was founded in 2012 by M. Lee Sellers.

October 2023 - Business Podcast Network, a media company known for its flagship show, The Drill Down, which analyzes tech company earnings. BPN was founded in 2021 by Cory Johnson.

October 2023 - The CTO Advisor, a test lab, research, and podcast company with a flagship show, The CTO Advisor. The company was founded in 2016 by Keith Townsend and Melissa Townsend. In 2025, The CTO Advisor was spun out and relaunched under The Advisor Bench LLC.

December 2023 - Gestalt IT, a publishing and events platform known for its flagship, Tech Field Day. The company was founded in 2006 by Stephen Foskett.

April 2024 - Techstrong Group, a media company and published of sites including DevOps.com, Security Boulevard, Cloud Native Now, and Techstrong.ai. The company was founded in 2013 by Alan Shimel.

What Futurum largely didn’t own yet was a deeply differentiated proprietary data asset comparable to what Gartner, IDC, 451, or some of the datacenter specific firms increasingly rely on.

About ETR

Aptiviti (ETR) was founded in 2011 by Thomas DelVecchio. ETR is a technology research and data firm leveraging proprietary data gathered from enterprise IT decision makers. The company raised a Series A in 2017 and is currently led by Brad LaScolea, who rejoined the company as CEO in July 2024 after previously serving as EVP of Sales from 2012-2021.

Joining Brad on the ETR leadership team is Alicia Agostino (Head of Finance & Operations), Erik Bradley (Chief Strategist & Director of Research), Vince Chang (Head of Analytics), Nick Lane (Head of Community and Connect), Ralph Terysen (CTO), and Jimmy Uzzalino (EVP, Financial Services).

ETR may be best known for its Technology Spending Intentions Survey (TSIS), a quarterly pulse of decision-maker spending intentions at the product-level. The company was one of the first to systematically measure what enterprise buyers were actually doing, as opposed to just providing opinions. This resonated with a part of the market many technology research firms fail to capture - hedge funds. As enterprise software investing became increasingly data-driven over the past 10 years, ETR evolved into one of the most respected signal businesses in the sector.

This contributes further to a broader trend: the lines between research, media, data, events, and workflow are disappearing. Some choose to partner, but more often acquisitions are proving the highest yield. Futurum + ETR creates a more vertically integrated model, with media distribution (Techstrong), analyst reach (Futurum), demand generation (Visible Impact), enterprise spend data (ETR), community (ETR), and increasingly AI-native analysis and delivery mechanisms.

It begs the question, is this modern Gartner?

Why This Is Especially Exciting In The AI Era

AI massively increases the value of proprietary structured datasets. Everyone now has access to generalized knowledge. Very few firms own differentiated, continuously refreshed enterprise spending-intent data. AI is increasingly the subject of enterprise tech research as well, so companies in this area kill two birds with one stone.

What To Expect, Now That We’re Expecting

The obvious opportunity is building an AI copilot layer on top of the rich data and analyst research. This becomes far more powerful when grounded in proprietary survey data instead of scraped web content. Copilots, however, seem to be table stakes these days. But Futurum’s copilot could answer things questions like:

• what vendors are gaining budget momentum among Fortune 500 CIOs?

• which AI infrastructure platforms are showing strongest net expansion?

• what is enterprise sentiment on cybersecurity consolidation?

ETR’s strong institutional investor relationships can be used to cross-sell Futurum services into an already sticky buy-side investor base. Similarly, ETR benefits from Futurum’s enterprise relationships and strong media presence.

With a foundational community, I’d expect more CIO councils, executive roundtables, peer benchmarking, and enhanced sub-sector coverage.

More acquisitions. Everyone’s favorite part of these write-ups. Reminder that this is not a “who’s for sale” list.

A reviews platform would provide further context into sentiment on products and adoption/churn on an ongoing basis. G2 is the leader here, and while they may be too large to be an acquisition target, perhaps they could be the acquirer? In January 2026, G2 announced the acquisitions of Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp from Gartner. They also this week announced verified SaaS spend and contract data.

Most technology market research is focused on the buyer perspective. But what about the sellers? RepVue brings tech seller perspectives and sentiment data to the fold, providing one of the most unique insights into company performance via front-line teams. What % of sellers are hitting quota? What do they think about the company’s products. What does sales team retention look like? An acquisition here would provide a 360 perspective on enterprise tech buying & selling.

Sub-sector expansion into telecom would make Recon Analytics a logical target. The company similarly provides survey-based data-driven insights on business and consumer telecom, AI, and airlines.

Another sub-sector deep dive could include Silicon Data, a provider of compute market intelligence and realtime price transparency and performance data. Silicon Data, similar to ETR, targets the institutional investment market and in May 2025 raised a $4.7M Seed round led by DRW and Jump Trading.

The Takeaway

This deal is another sign that the “analyst firm” category is being reinvented. The next generation of winners likely won’t look like pure research firms, media companies, or data providers. They will look like integrated intelligence platforms combining proprietary data, community, workflow, AI, media distribution, analyst expertise, and GTM execution. The Futurum Group + ETR is one of the biggest steps in this direction, and that’s why this acquisition feels bigger than a standard M&A headline. It is another robust datapoint in the broader reshaping of the information-services industry itself.

For more perspectives and excitement, check out Steven Armstrong’s post here.

Congrats to all teams involved!