Whale Path Raises $1.1 Million to Disrupt the $24 Billion Business Research Market


SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 4, 2014) - Whale Path, the on-demand business research platform for corporate customers, has received a $1.1 million seed round of financing from a group of investors. A graduate of the 500 Startups accelerator, Whale Path's investors include TMT Investments, Kima Ventures, 500 Startups, Altair Capital, FundersClub, Wefunder, and Ben Narasin.

Corporations can order custom research from Whale Path's on-demand platform on key business decision points like Market Sizing and Competitive Analysis. Its technology delivers custom business research three times faster and at half the price of research offered by leading research vendors. Most projects are completed in 7 to 14 days.

"Whale Path's mission is to make business research mainstream and on-demand for organizations of all sizes and budgets," said Artem Gassan, co-founder, Whale Path. "Our patent pending technology is scalable because it modularizes data points for reuse across multiple custom research reports. We plan to enhance our platform to perform predictive and causative quantitative analysis with artificial intelligence and natural language processing."

Whale Path uses a 'research challenge' format to fulfill orders for custom research. Customers request research by launching a Challenge and setting a price range for each data point as well as a maximum price for the entire project. Multiple analysts then perform research and upload data points and analysis to the platform. Whale Path reviews all data points for accuracy and validity and removes duplicates. Customers receive multiple data point submissions and pay based on the accuracy and value each data point presents to them. Customers review all analysts' responses and grant kudos with additional payments for sourcing most valuable and relevant data. Analysts who receive the most kudos gain access to future projects with higher payouts.

"Whale Path has a huge opportunity to redefine the business research market," said Ben Narasin. "I'm extremely impressed with Whale Path's success to date, its vision and its ability to execute. By making invaluable intellectual assets more accessible, Whale Path allows businesses of all sizes to make informed decisions and compete by utilizing custom research that was previously available only to the largest companies."

"This funding round is a vote of confidence in Whale Path's vision of a real-time on-demand platform for business research and the company's long term potential," said Colin Gu, co-founder, Whale Path. "We plan to use this funding to accelerate growth and capture the potential of this untapped market."

About Whale Path
Whale Path is a venture backed, on-demand business research platform for corporate customers. Its unique platform combines the power of big data analytics with the knowledge and expertise of Market Analysts. Whale Path makes high-quality, custom research available for any business by challenging a group of accredited Business Analysts to perform on-demand real-time research on key topics such as market sizing and/or competitive analysis. Founded in 2012 and a member of 500 Startups Batch 8, Whale Path's advisors and investors include executives from top research companies like Forrester Research and Gartner, noted marketer Jeffrey Hayzlett and educators from Stanford University. Learn more at https://whalepath.com

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