SurveyMonkey Invests in Workplace Performance Firm

Online DIY research specialist SurveyMonkey has made its second investment in as many months - this time in workplace performance assessment firm The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC), with whom it will partner to find new ways to measure 'the pulse' of the workforce.

Palo Alto, CA-based SurveyMonkey offers an online survey platform which receives around eighty million survey responses a month. In September, the firm co-led a $5.0m Series A fundraising round for in-app customer communication platform Apptentive.

Its latest investment, TMBC, was founded by Gallup veteran Marcus Buckingham (pictured) and delivers tools, research, coaching and training programs, to help team leaders build on the individual strengths, engagement and performance of each employee. Buckingham says that with SurveyMonkey's funding, the two firms will develop new tools to help team leaders gather and interpret employee performance and productivity - tools which he claims are not currently available elsewhere. As part of the investment, Damon Cronkey, SVP of Corporate Development and Strategy for SurveyMonkey, joins the TMBC Board.

Buckingham adds: 'SurveyMonkey is a company that has built a business that is utterly transforming the way in which companies gather and interpret data. TMBC aims to do the same with employee performance and productivity. Faced with existing performance systems that everyone knows are broken, we know we will have to act quickly and intelligently, and SurveyMonkey is the best possible partner to help us do this.'

TMBC has also announced the appointment of HR and technology exec Jason Averbook as Chief Executive Officer.

A feature based on our recent interview with SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg will appear shortly on the site - and you can see exclusive video of the interview at the BIG Forum meeting in London on 2nd December - details from nickt@mrweb.com .

Web sites: www.surveymonkey.com and www.tmbc.com .