Berlin-based Atheneum raises $150M to accelerate global expansion and grow its expert networks research platform

We live in the digital age and data is rapidly becoming the lifeblood of the global economy. Data now represents a new type of economic asset used by leading companies to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. This has brought about the emergence of new fields like data science which uses data for research and advanced analytics to extract valuable information from data for business decision-making.

One of the leading startups in this space is Atheneum, a Berlin, Germany-based tech startup and provider of expert networks research platform. Through its global knowledge-sharing platform, Atheneum connects leading investment funds, consulting firms, and corporations with the world’s most renowned experts to empower business decisions.

Today, Atheneum announced it has raised $150 million (£110 million) in growth capital funding to fuel its rapid market expansion including in the U.S., continued technology and product development, as well as hiring initiatives. The round was led by Guidepost Growth Equity, with participation from existing investors including Crosslantic Capital Management, Michael Brehm, Vogel Communications Group, and the founding management team of Atheneum.

Founded in 2010 by Mathias Wengeler (CEO), Ammad Ahmad, and Marta Margolis, Atheneum provides companies with on-demand access to global intelligence and up-to-date insights to meet the need of the ever-changing global markets. Atheneum offers what it dubbed as a Research-as-a-Service to deliver the latest intelligence powered by a network of over 550,000+ experts. The company currently has 500 staff across 11 offices including London, Munich and Shanghai, and New York.

Through its proprietary machine-learning software and cloud-based insights platform “Athena One”, Atheneum delivers qualitative (expert consultations and placements) and quantitative (surveys and data products) research solutions to businesses around the world.

“We are excited for the next phase of growth and to further disrupt the fast-growing, $22 billion data and intelligence market,” said Mathias Wengeler, Atheneum co-founder and CEO. “Our vision is to build a fully digital cockpit for primary research, a one-stop shop to gather raw data from surveys, virtual focus groups to in-depth interviews – all delivered by our evolving suite of products.”

Despite the COVID-19 crisis, Atheneum grew 45% in 2020 and has continued that momentum in the first seven months of 2021 with the company’s growth nearly doubling. The new growth capital will fuel the company’s market expansion in the US, continued technology and product development and hiring initiatives.

London-based Ammad Ahmad, Atheneum co-founder and COO added: Companies have long turned to data and insights to break ranks from the competition and capture growth opportunities. As an expert networks platform, we are making it easier, faster, and more accessible for all businesses to tap into rich resources of intelligence to support agile companies around the world to reach their growth goals faster. Our work begins where Google searches end.”

Roshen Menon and Chris Cavanagh, general partners of Guidepost, will join the company’s board. “Guidepost has gotten to know Mathias and his team over a number of years through our long-term investment experience and thesis-development in the ResTech space.

Atheneum is redefining how business intelligence is being shared across the globe by connecting enterprise organizations with the highest quality information at record speed,” said Roshen Menon, General Partner of Guidepost Growth Equity. “We are thrilled to partner with Atheneum, as the company continues to lead and drive innovation in the substantial, yet fragmented ResTech market.”