Ideally, the AI-powered market research platform used by Doordash, Telstra, Google and Asahi, has raised $13.4 million in Series A funding.

The round, led by Shearwater Capital, with support from Altered Capital and Icehouse Ventures, sees the start-up valued at over $83 million.

Ideally is said to give marketing teams “real consumer insight overnight, for a fraction of the cost of a traditional research project, without compromising on quality”. The platform is built on “real” consumer data, with AI “sharpening” both the questions asked and the analysis that follows.

Ideally CEO James Donald says the best creative work has always come from genuinely understanding real people, but that understanding has been locked behind months of waiting and six-figure budgets.  

“The Australian brands winning right now are the ones closest to their customers, and we built Ideally to give every team that closeness at the speed and scale that modern markets actually need,” he says.

“Every test compounds on the last, every insight gets smarter, and every brand that joins the platform gets a genuine competitive advantage.”

More than 250 brands across APAC and the US use Ideally to discover where opportunity exists in their category, test and validate ideas early, and make faster decisions across the product and marketing lifecycle.

US expansion

The investment will accelerate Ideally’s US expansion. The company opened a New York office in early 2026 and has since grown US revenue by 350%, with customers including Duckhorn, Tilray and Rémy Cointreau.

Shearwater Capital Managing Partner Zac Zavos points to the product’s impact as the driver behind the investment.

“Ideally has taken what was a long, expensive, waterfall research process and rebuilt it as something fast, iterative, and accessible. Once marketers experience the speed of overnight responses, it becomes indispensable,” he says.  

“What impresses us most is how every aspect of this business has been built around customer delight, and the pace at which they’ve scaled revenue, customers, and team since inception reflects that. They’re moving fast and building the category as they go.”

New product

For decades, Ideally says brands have relied on one-off research studies that take weeks to deliver and quickly become outdated as consumer behaviour shifts.

“That means insights often arrive too late to shape ideas, and are instead used to validate work that is already in motion,” says the company.

Alongside the raise, Ideally is launching Ideally Canvas, a new product that is said to give brands a “living, continuously updated picture” of their consumer rather than a static snapshot. 

Ideally Canvas is designed to bring consumer, category, and competitor understanding into the earliest stage of the creative process.

“Every study feeds a compounding dataset that builds over time, helping teams understand what consumers want more of, what is missing in their category, and which creative directions are likely to resonate,” says Ideally.

Mr Donald says consumer sentiment moves in dog years these days.

“The biggest risk in marketing is making a bold call based on who your customer was half a year ago, let alone 18 months ago,” he says.

“Better decisions come from understanding how people are thinking, feeling and behaving right now, not relying on yesterday’s assumptions.”