Downtown DC’s Morning Consult is now a unicorn

With a $60 million Series B round led by Advance Venture Partners in its pocket, downtown D.C.’s Morning Consult said Tuesday that it is now valued at $1.01 billion.

Susquehanna Growth Equity and Lupa Systems also took part in the round, which Morning Consult said makes it the latest private enterprise technology company to achieve unicorn status. It’s a milestone that arrives when a company reaches a valuation of more than $1 billion.

The six-year-old data intelligence company is one of the most notable growth companies in DC, as it closed a $31 million Series A round this time last year and has nearly doubled the size of its team.

CEO Michael Ramlet said that the new round will help the company develop additional AI applications, grow its data collection infrastructure and launch commercial operations in the Europe-Middle East-Africa and Asia-Pacific regions.

“We’re only just beginning to disrupt an antiquated $90 billion industry,” Ramlet said in a statement.

A Morning Consult spokesperson said the company plans to expand its presence from 15 countries globally to 50 by the year’s end. The company currently has 360 full-time team members, up from 186 members in June 2020, and has seen 132% staff growth over the past year. The spokesperson said Morning Consult will continue to aggressively hire with the new funding. (Check out open roles)

At the moment, it has a run rate revenue of over $100 million and has consistently grown revenue 100% per year. Over 100 million people have access to the product globally.

“Morning Consult’s success to date is evidence of the growing importance of technology and data-driven insights in enterprise decision making,” said David ibnAle, Founding and Managing Partner of AVP.

Last year, the company also announced that it had signed a new lease to triple the size of its current office at the Douglas Development Corporation’s Woodies Building at 1025 F St. NW. At the time, the Washington Business Journal reported that the company expected to move by September of this year. It also reported a hiring increase at the time, adding 110 employees since the announcement last December.

In the D.C. area, Morning Consult joins McLean, Virginia-based online identity verification company id.me among newly-minted unicorns in 2021.