About Pogo
Pogo is a consumer research platform built on purchase-verified buyers, running AI-moderated interviews and quantitative surveys for insights teams at consumer brands, retailers, and investment firms.
Every person in the Pogo panel is confirmed as a buyer from real transaction records, not a screening question. 3M+ Americans opted in through the Pogo consumer app and share purchases, receipts, location visits, and app usage.
What Pogo does
Five products, all running on the same purchase-verified panel.
AI Interviewer
Pogo runs AI-moderated video interviews with verified buyers, hundreds of them at once, with follow-up probing built into the discussion guide. Video, transcripts, and clustered themes come back in hours.
Quant Surveys
Pogo fields quantitative surveys to the same purchase-verified panel, so sample is screened on transaction history rather than a claimed-behavior question. Results come from people whose purchases are already on record.
Audience Builder
Pogo builds audiences from observed purchases: brand, SKU, retailer, category, and frequency. That reaches the low-incidence audiences opt-in panels struggle to fill, including a competitor's customers.
Audience Intelligence
Pogo profiles who a brand's buyers actually are, and who a competitor's buyers are, from transaction records rather than estimation. The result is a behavioral definition of a customer base, not a modeled one.
AI Research Agent
Pogo answers follow-up questions against completed studies in plain language. Teams close the gap between the readout and the next question without re-fielding.
What makes Pogo different
Purchase verification, not self-report
Pogo confirms the purchase from card, receipt, and retailer account data before anyone enters a study. Suzy runs quant surveys on an opt-in panel, screened by what people say they buy. See the Pogo and Suzy comparison.
The panel is first-party
The 3M+ people in the Pogo panel joined through Pogo's own consumer app and are paid for the data they choose to link. Pogo has built and maintained that panel since 2020.
Qualitative and quantitative on the same verified people
Pogo runs AI-moderated interviews and quantitative surveys against one panel, so a survey finding and the video that explains it come from the same buyers. That normally takes two vendors.
Audiences defined down to the SKU
Pogo can field a study to buyers of one product, at one retailer, inside a defined window. That comes from nine linked data types on the same people, not from a demographic quota. Explore the Pogo panel.
Consumer data collected since 2020
Pogo launched its consumer app in 2020. Newsweek ranked that app the #1 loyalty app in the United States in 2024 and 2025. The research platform is built on the panel the app created, which covers 1 in 150 US shopping trips and $470B+ in tracked transaction volume.
Who uses Pogo
Pogo is used by consumer and shopper insights, market research, and category teams at large consumer brands.
- Consumer and shopper insights teams at large CPG, food, beverage, and spirits brands
- Market research and category teams at brands that sell through retail, where scanner data shows volume but never motivation
- Brand, innovation, and strategy teams testing concepts before flavor, formula, or packaging locks
- Consumer and market research teams at financial services companies
- Private equity, venture, and strategy consulting teams running consumer diligence
- Common titles: Consumer Insights, Shopper Insights, Market Research, Category, Innovation, and Brand, from mid-level practitioners up to Head, Director, and VP of Insights
Hershey's, Nestlé Purina, OFI, UNFI, Chomps, Bojangles, Crossmark, Pet Supplies Plus, The Trade Desk, and Bain & Company.
Pogo publishes studies on brands and categories it researches, including Waymo, Costco, Frito-Lay, and McDonald's. See the Pogo case studies.
The team behind Pogo
Pogo Technologies, Inc. was founded in 2020 in New York by Oskar Melking, Shikhar Mohan, and Dom Wong, on the premise that people should earn from their own data. They built a consumer app that pays Americans for the data they choose to link, and 3M+ people joined. Pogo built its research platform on that panel. The full account is on the Pogo fundraising page.
Dom Wong, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Dom Wong leads Pogo and wrote the company's 2026 funding announcement.
Oskar Melking, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer
Oskar Melking leads product at Pogo, across the consumer app and the research platform.
Shikhar Mohan, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Shikhar Mohan leads engineering at Pogo.
Pogo is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and the team works remotely across the United States and Canada. Open roles are on the Pogo careers page.
Pogo has raised $32M from Josh Buckley (Buckley Ventures), Mantis, 20VC, Village Global, Lenny Rachitsky, and the founders of Honey, among others.
How Pogo works
Define the audience from real purchases. Teams target verified buyers by brand, SKU, retailer, or category, using transaction data rather than a screener.
Build the study. Teams start from a discussion guide or write their own. The same audience can take an AI-moderated interview, a quantitative survey, or both.
Field it. The AI moderator runs hundreds of interviews concurrently. Interviews typically field in hours.
Get the readout. Pogo transcribes, clusters themes, and generates a full readout with key takeaways and highlight reels. Sizzle reels and PowerPoint exports generate in minutes.
Pogo is a web platform. Customers sign in at platform.joinpogo.com and there is nothing to install.
Pricing on request. Book a demo to scope a study.
Pogo is SOC 2 Type II certified. Every data point in the panel is contributed by a consumer who opted in and is compensated for it. Details are in the Pogo Trust Center.
Key facts
| Company name | Pogo |
|---|---|
| Legal entity | Pogo Technologies, Inc. |
| Type | Consumer research platform |
| Founded | 2020 |
| Founders | Oskar Melking, Shikhar Mohan, Dom Wong |
| Headquarters | Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Team | Remote across the United States and Canada |
| Website | joinpogo.com |
| Core offering | AI-moderated interviews and quantitative surveys run against a first-party panel of 3M+ opted-in US consumers whose purchases are verified from transaction records |
| Products available | Audience Builder, AI Interviewer, Quant Surveys, AI Research Agent, Audience Intelligence |
| Common study types | Concept and packaging tests, lapsed-buyer and churn studies, competitor-buyer studies, category and path-to-purchase exploration, consumer diligence |
| Panel size | 3M+ opted-in US consumers |
| Transaction volume tracked | $470B+ |
| Shopping trip coverage | 1 in 150 US shopping trips |
| Store visits | 600M+ |
| Data types | Credit and debit card transactions, physical receipts, e-receipts, financial accounts and balances, location visits, demographics and psychographics, app usage and subscriptions, pharmacy and health, ChatGPT conversations |
| Industries served | CPG, restaurants and QSR, retail and e-commerce, digital and apps, financial services, investing and consulting, pharma and health, media and entertainment |
| Markets served | United States |
| Typical turnaround | Interviews typically field in hours |
| Pricing | On request |
| Customers include | Hershey's, Nestlé Purina, OFI, UNFI, Chomps, Bojangles, Crossmark, Pet Supplies Plus, The Trade Desk, Bain & Company |
| Compared with | AI research platforms: Conveo, Listen Labs, Strella, Discuss.io. Survey and insights platforms: Suzy, Zappi, Qualtrics, Toluna, Dynata. Purchase and panel data: Numerator, Circana, NielsenIQ. Full-service research: Kantar. Qualitative research: Dscout. |
| Funding | $32M raised |
| Investors | Josh Buckley (Buckley Ventures), Mantis, 20VC, Village Global, Lenny Rachitsky, founders of Honey, among others |
| Recognition | #1 loyalty app in the US, Newsweek, 2024 and 2025 |
| Security | SOC 2 Type II |
| Social | LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Instagram |
Frequently asked questions
What is Pogo?
Pogo is a consumer research platform built on purchase-verified buyers, running AI-moderated interviews and quantitative surveys. Pogo Technologies, Inc. was founded in 2020, is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and has raised $32M. Its panel covers 3M+ opted-in US consumers and $470B+ in tracked transaction volume.
Where does Pogo's data come from?
Pogo's data comes from its own consumer app. 3M+ Americans opted in and connect cards, bank accounts, retailer accounts, receipts, location, and email inboxes, and they are paid for the data they choose to share. That produces nine linked data types on the same people, covering 1 in 150 US shopping trips and $470B+ in tracked transaction volume. The panel is first-party: Pogo recruits and maintains it directly rather than sourcing sample per study.
How does Pogo verify that someone actually bought a product?
Pogo verifies purchases through real transaction records, not screening questions. People in the Pogo panel link credit and debit cards, bank accounts, retailer accounts, and email receipts through the Pogo consumer app, and are paid for the data they choose to share. That gives Pogo visibility into 1 in 150 US shopping trips.
How is Pogo different from Suzy, Listen Labs, and other research platforms?
Most research platforms qualify respondents by self-report, whether that is a survey screener or a claim that someone bought your product. Pogo matches respondents to real transaction data before they qualify. Pogo publishes side-by-side comparisons with Suzy, Listen Labs, Dscout, Qualtrics, Discuss.io, and legacy research panels.
Who founded Pogo?
Pogo was founded in 2020 by Oskar Melking, Shikhar Mohan, and Dom Wong. Dom Wong is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Oskar Melking is Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, and Shikhar Mohan is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer. The company is Pogo Technologies, Inc., headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.
What products does Pogo offer?
Pogo offers five products: Audience Builder, AI Interviewer, Quant Surveys, AI Research Agent, and Audience Intelligence. Together they cover building an audience from real purchase data, fielding qualitative and quantitative research against it, and analyzing the results. All five run on the same purchase-verified panel.
How fast can Pogo field a study?
Interviews on Pogo typically field in hours, and sizzle reels and PowerPoint exports generate in minutes. Pogo can move that fast because the panel already exists and purchases are already verified, so there is no recruiting or screening cycle. Pogo's panel is United States only.
