Roll-Up Targets Net Market Force $32M

Dow Jones VentureWire
by Jonathan Shieber

March 6 2007

Market Force Information Inc., with $32 million in Series B funding in hand, is looking to pick off its first acquisition target in the market for monitoring shoppers' experiences.

The new round comes a little over one year after its $19.3 million Series A round. Previous investors Centennial Ventures, Boulder Ventures, Vista Ventures, and Hercules Growth Capital joined new lead investor Monitor Clipper Partners in the Series B.

Chief Executive Karl Maier said the round would have two major uses: additional acquisitions and developing new information services on top of its secret shopping outsourcing platform. "There are several acquisitions in our sights right now," Maier said. Mainly, the company will look to add to its existing markets and expand into providing secret shopping services for the hospitality, consumer electronics, and retail banking industries.

Profitable and growing, the Boulder, Colo.-based Market Force has based much of its success to date on its first acquisition. That February 2006 deal brought Atlanta-based Shop'n Chek Inc. under Market Force control and gave the company its initial successes in the restaurant, wireless retailing, and big-box retailing markets.

The company has since launched an information service for wireless retailers that offers them a comparative analysis of the in-store experience at each of their stores. "We ask questions across distribution channels and provide comparative, competitive information that shows how competitors are comparing against each other in the market," said Maier. The company's next research-based product will concentrate on the restaurant industry.

Market Force has also launched an online training tool called Triggered Training, which customers can use to teach their employees about issues observed by Market Force's mystery shoppers on sales floors.

For Market Force, the biggest expense is the data collection, aggregation and analysis that the company uses as the backbone for its services, according to Maier. Its secret shoppers are independent contractors hired by the company and paid on a per-shop-completed basis. "The shoppers themselves don't hit our P&L as an employee cost," Maier said.

The company has 140 employees, with 30 in Boulder, and another 110 at the Shop'n Chek offices in Atlanta.

As a result of its investment Travis Metz, managing director of Monitor Clipper Partners and Bansi Nagji, senior partner with Monitor Group, a leading management consulting firm, will both take seats on the Market Force board of directors.