Data startup Surff closes seed round backed by Mercia Ventures
This article covers Surff, a data startup, and its closure of a seed funding round backed by Mercia Ventures to build an "infrastructure layer for decision data". The development aims to provide brands and product teams with consented, structured browsing data to show consumer choice journeys as tracking shifts to a cookieless environment and AI agents influence purchase decisions.
Surff, a data startup based in the North East, has closed a seed funding round backed by Mercia Ventures to build what it calls an “infrastructure layer for decision data” — a response to the shift to cookieless tracking, rising privacy rules and the emergence of AI agents that are changing how consumers make and compare purchase decisions.
Why it matters
Brands have relied on click and impression-level signals for two decades, but those signals increasingly fail to capture the comparisons and trade-offs that lead to a final purchase. As AI agents and privacy protections reshape online browsing, companies risk losing visibility into how decisions are made across sites and devices. Surff aims to fill that gap by capturing consented, structured browsing behaviour so firms can see the flow of choices rather than isolated interactions.
Inside the product
Surff’s platform captures browsing activity only after user consent and applies proprietary AI to structure that behaviour into anonymised, aggregated “decision intelligence.” The resulting data is intended to show what options users considered, what they shortlisted, and the factors that drove their final selection — across full journeys and multiple domains rather than last-touch attribution or walled-garden signals.
The company also embeds a consumer-facing value exchange: users opt in, control what they share and receive rewards from brands that benefit. Surff pitches this as replacing a historically extractive data model with a consent-first, reciprocal arrangement. The product claims to balance usable intelligence for brands with anonymisation and consumer control, though how data governance, provenance and de-anonymisation risks are managed will be important to watch as the platform scales.
Who are the investors?
Surff’s launch is supported by Mercia Ventures. The announcement notes this is Mercia’s second time backing founder Ian Griffiths, signalling continued confidence in his track record. The deal appears positioned as an early-stage investment to help product development and regional expansion rather than a large-scale growth cheque.
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
- Explore our list of data venture capital firms in the UK
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Founder perspective
Ian Griffiths, Founder & CEO of Surff, said:
For two decades, the digital economy has been built on data that consumers generate but never benefit from. Surff exists to change that. We’re building the infrastructure layer for decision data – the missing signal that brands have lost as cookies disappear and agentic commerce replaces the buying journey. Consumers get to own and earn from the data they create. Brands get a clearer picture of how decisions actually happen. I’m especially proud to be building this in the North East, where the talent and ambition are world-class.
Griffiths previously co-founded WhoCanFixMyCar.com, a UK car-servicing marketplace that exited to a Japanese trade buyer in 2023. He has stated an intent to grow Surff from the North East, contributing to local job creation and the region’s profile in data, AI and consumer technology.
The bigger picture
Surff’s proposition sits at the intersection of several sector trends: the move to cookieless tracking, stricter privacy regulation, and the rise of agentic commerce where AI tools make or heavily influence choices on behalf of users. If it delivers reliable, privacy-preserving decision signals, the platform could help marketers and product teams move beyond fragile attribution models.
The announcement also highlights continued interest from data investors in infrastructure that can survive a cookieless world while offering consumer-aligned data models. How Surff competes with or complements adtech, analytics and consent-management vendors will determine its market fit.
Surff’s launch — and Mercia’s backing — underscores a broader effort to build more of the UK’s data and AI infrastructure outside London, reinforcing regional ecosystems and the diversity of actors tackling post-cookie measurement challenges across the UK and Europe.
They've invested in Surff
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