Emporia

Emporia Research is a B2B market research technology company based in Austin, Texas, founded in July 2020 by Michael Hess, Jake Roeland, and Mark Hannan. The founders built the platform after concluding that traditional B2B research panels were plagued by outdated practices, self-reported data, and fraud rates as high as 40%. Its product suite includes mrxCore, a DIY data-collection platform for recruiting LinkedIn-verified professional respondents; Polis, a participant portal where verified professionals are paid for sharing expert opinions; and Levada, an audience-allocation tool that helps research suppliers manage and append verified traffic. Emporia has raised roughly $5.9 million in venture funding across a $1.2 million pre-seed round in December 2022 and a $4.7 million seed round in 2024 led by Founder Collective, with participation from Data Point Capital, Remarkable Ventures, and Revelry Venture Partners. The company has grown to more than 70 employees across engineering, client solutions, and delivery.