User experience testing and monitoring startup UserZoom raises $100M

UserZoom, a company developing software to measure digital experiences including apps and websites, today announced that it raised $100 million in a venture round led by Owl Rock. The proceeds, which the company says it plans to put toward expansion and hiring, come as UserZoom acquires EnjoyHQ, an experience insights startup that centralizes customer feedback and research findings into a single dashboard.

Surveys show that design can be as important for the success of a digital experience as content and functionality. It’s estimated that every $1 invested in user experience nets a $100 return, a 9,900% ROI. And according to Forrester Research, frictionless user experience design could potentially raise customer conversion rates up to 400%..

UserZoom lets customers establish criteria for user experience performance, track it over time, and then align it with business results. The metrics the platform records can be used to inform product strategy and information architecture, as well as to continuously test and validate throughout the design and development processes.

With UserZoom, companies can evaluate and benchmark products with target users by conducting interviews remotely or funneling them through tests of structure, navigation, and ease of use. These customers can also collect and monitor surveys and invite website visitors or app users to a study, or create shareable reports based on notes, clips, and other aggregated test data.

This kind of user experience testing and monitoring can be critical to preventing user frustration. PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 32% of customers leave a brand they loved after just one bad experience. Moreover, 13% of customers tell 15 or more people about their bad experiences, while 72% tell 6 or more people about good experiences.

“COVID-19 has led to a significant acceleration in consumers’ rate of digital adoption and their expectations for a seamless, convenient and personalized experience,” cofounder and co-CEO Alfonso de la Nuez said in a press release. “This investment, as well as our ‘rule of 40’ financial performance in 2020, is proof that businesses are waking up to the fact that traditional ways of designing and measuring digital experiences are no longer good enough. Today’s users and customers demand more, and leaders need the data and insights that UserZoom provides to allow them to quickly make confident, customer- and data-driven decisions to stay in front of the competition.”

The user experience monitoring market is large and growing, with a value that’s expected to climb from $1.5 billion in 2019 to $3.7 billion by 2023, Markets and Markets anticipates. UserZoom competes with companies including Usabilla and Qualaroo, as well as UserVoice. But UserZoom claims to count tech giants like Google, Oracle, and half of the Fortune 100 among its clientele. And SVP of product Andrew Jensen believes that the integration of EnoyHQ’s product will set UserZoom apart from the rest.

“Our acquisition of EnjoyHQ is yet another example of our goal to simplify and improve the XIM process,” Jensen said, adding that he expects an integrated UserZoom and EnjoyHQ product to be available in the second half of 2021. “Our vision is to allow our customers to connect project insights from UserZoom with a broader customer experience  and user experience integrated experience insights hub, where thousands of users across the organization can conduct analysis, share feedback, and discuss proposals needed to create seamless experiences that drive business outcomes.”

This latest funding round brings UserZoom’s total raised to over $130 million. The San Jose, California-based company previously nabbed $34 million in October 2015 in a series A round.