Safaricom's Spark Venture Fund has made a strategic investment in mSurvey, a global mobile-first research platform leveraging SMS and mobile messaging technology to simplify access to credible, on-demand data from the emerging world.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom, said: This investment enhances our efforts to leverage mSurvey's highly-sophisticated technology as a significant opportunity for growth and innovation throughout our network, while also enabling us to interact and engage with our 25 million customers in one-to-one conversations.”

“mSurvey has consistently demonstrated its value to us as clients and now as investors, we see broad potential across a variety of sectors and beyond borders. We are pleased to help fuel a new paradigm of data-driven innovation powered by mSurvey,” he added.

Safaricom's Spark Venture Fund is a $1m fund with an objective of accelerating high-potential Kenya-based mobile technology startups.

The investment in mSurvey marks the second and largest Spark Venture Fund investment to date.

mSurvey will use the Spark Venture Fund investment to drive a value-add to merchants who use Safaricom's Lipa Na M-PESA service, a solution that allows consumers to pay for goods and services easily through their phones using M-PESA.

Built out of a passion to simplify access to high-quality data from hard-to-reach communities, mSurvey was founded in 2012 by Kenfield Griffith.

Today, mSurvey is revolutionizing how businesses create interactive and individual relationships with their customers by providing unprecedented access to real-time, direct feedback that empowers them to have conversations at scale.

The company is already working with some of the most well-known brands in the worlds of telecommunications, health and academic research and business, including Safaricom, McKinsey, Airtel, Harvard University, Acumen and Digicel.

“As a mobile technology startup, there's no greater validation on the continent than an investment from Safaricom, a giant in the African telecom market,” said Kenfield Griffith, Founder and CEO, mSurvey.

"For too long, direct access to emerging world data has been inaccessible, but we are witnessing the power of technology – specifically mobile messaging on our ever-present smart and simple phones –to connect people to local audiences. With Safaricom's support, we are accelerating our vision of bringing high-integrity data from frontier and emerging markets that informs better decisions and fuels growth, change and transformation,” he added.

With the investment, Safaricom Spark joins Silicon Valley's Cross Culture Ventures and the Virgin Group-backed, Caribbean-focused Alpha Angels network as investors in mSurvey.

Cross Culture Ventures (CCV) invests in entrepreneurs creating next generation technology and consumer products.

The group, which was also an early investor in Uber, Spotify and Warby Parker via the Atom Factory, was attracted by mSurvey's potential reach and impact given the rising popularity of chat and text messaging.

“We believe culture is the catalyst for winning solutions and mSurvey fits perfectly into our thesis as mobile messaging becomes the primary platform for communication around the world,” said Marlon Nichols, Founder & General Partner at Cross Culture Ventures.

"mSurvey is disrupting traditional research models by using a medium that transcends borders, demographics and a range of industries, capturing the voice of the consumer like never before,” he said.

Unlike traditional research tools that can be time-consuming, expensive and subject to low response rates, mSurvey opens a dynamic, interactive and unfiltered communication channel that delivers insights from real people, in real time – no printed questionnaire, local administrator or long response time needed.

Using the intuitive interface to target select local audiences or random, diverse populations, users can design structured conversations, similar to customized bots, push questions as chats to the mobile phones of millions, and then watch as the responses roll in on a live data stream – within minutes and with an average 60% response rate that triples the reach of traditional survey tools.

“The unique combination of Cross Culture Ventures, Alpha Angels and Safaricom as our investors strategically positions mSurvey as a truly globally driven and funded startup backed by a diverse set of investors that see our value proposition and understand our vision,” continued Griffith.

“We are excited about their support and look forward to creating new markets and opportunity using data as a door-opener to economic growth, entrepreneurship and development,” he said.