Qualtrics, LLC is an American experience management company, with co-headquarters in Seattle, Washington, and Provo, Utah The company was founded in 2002 by Scott M. Smith, Ryan Smith, Jared Smith, and Stuart Orgill.
Qualtrics offers a cloud-based subscription software platform for what they call Experience Management, which it launched in March 2017 and helps companies collect and analyze feedback from employees, customers and others. Qualtrics software is used widely in academia to conduct survey research; however, in 2012 the company began to pivot toward serving enterprise customers. As of 2026, the company is focused on data collection and the use of agentic AI.
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History
Qualtrics was founded in Provo, Utah in 2002. The company began in the Smiths' basement and operated from there for five years. Stuart Orgill, a friend of Ryan Smith, later joined them as the company began to grow.
In the company's first decade of operation, more than 1,300 universities used its Qualtrics Research Suite. Its customers also included Boeing, FedEx, and Microsoft.
2010–2019
In 2012, the company received a $70 million Series A investment from Sequoia Capital and Accel. It was the largest joint investment to date by these two firms. In September 2014, the two firms returned to Series B funding, led by Insight Partners. The funding, worth $150 million, was a record for a Utah-based company, and it valued the company at $1 billion.
In May 2016, Qualtrics acquired statistical analysis startup Statwing for an undisclosed sum. Statwing was a San Francisco-based company that created point-and-click software for advanced statistical analysis.
In April 2018, the firm acquired Delighted for an undisclosed sum. Delighted had more than 1,500 customers at the time of acquisition.
On October 19, 2018, Qualtrics filed its S-1 registration statement through an initial public offering (IPO). At the time, the company listed over 9,000 global customers.
Plans for the IPO were scrapped when it was announced in November 2018 that Qualtrics would be acquired by SAP (NYSE: SAP).
SAP bought Qualtrics in January 2019 for US$8 billion in an all-cash deal.
2020–present
On July 26, 2020, SAP announced its intent to take Qualtrics public through an IPO in the United States. According to SAP, the decision to go public was made due to Qualtrics' performance since the acquisition, with 2019 cloud growth in excess of 40 percent. SAP's stated intent was to remain the majority owner of Qualtrics, while Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith remained the company's largest shareholder.
On January 28, 2021, Qualtrics began trading on the Nasdaq at $41.85 per share.
In January 2021, Brad Anderson, a high level executive of Microsoft, joined Qualtrics as president of products and services.
In October 2021, the firm acquired Clarabridge in an all-stock deal for $1.125 billion. Clarabridge was a Virginia-based company that created software for omnichannel conversational analytics.
In May 2022, Qualtrics announced it would go live on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure in London in the second half of 2022. Qualtrics customers would be able to access the XM Platform locally via AWS London region. Furthermore, Qualtrics announced it would be opening a London office and customer experience centre.
In March 2023, a group of investors including private equity firm Silver Lake, CPP Investment Board, and co-founder Ryan Smith agreed to buy Qualtrics from SAP in an all-cash deal worth $12.5 billion.
Silver Lake first invested more than $500 million in Qualtrics during the company's IPO in 2021. In March 2023, Silver Lake agreed to take Qualtrics private. In June 2023, the Qualtrics acquisition by Silver Lake was completed. At the time of the close, the Qualtrics deal was the single largest investment in Silver Lake's history.
In connection with the close, Accel, a global venture capital firm, as well as BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank built to serve the distinct needs of business owners and strategic, long-term investors; and DFO Management, the family investment office of Michael Dell, joined Silver Lake in investing in Qualtrics. Accel, which was one of Qualtrics' earliest investors, invested $500 million. BDT & MSD Partners and DFO Management each made a co-investment of $250 million, for an aggregate commitment of $500 million.