Circana review

Circana is a market research and data analytics service built on the foundations of IRI and The NPD Group, serving CPG, retail, and durables manufacturers across 26 industries. This Circana review covers what Circana does, who owns it, how its Liquid Data technology works, and whether Circana is a good company to work for.

Circana was formed when IRI and NPD merged in 2022 and adopted the Circana name in 2023. Clients today get direct access to the pooled research and technology of both legacy firms, skipping months of guesswork.

What Does Circana Do?

Circana provides market research, advanced analytics, and data services that help retailers and brands understand underlying consumer behavior and market share. Circana integrates in-store, online, and omnichannel sales into a single deduplicated data set, giving teams one view of performance across a store, a region, or a category.

Circana helps brands optimize product assortment, shelf placement, pricing, promotions, and inventory, and it provides AI-driven insights for sales performance and market trends. Circana's data and technology empower clients to act faster than competitors relying on slower research cycles, and its tools for market share tracking, consumer segmentation, and demand forecasting give retailers seeking a fuller picture real opportunities to find and accelerate growth and take action sooner.

Circana Formation: The IRI and NPD Group Merger

Circana was built on IRI and NPD foundations. NPD Group began tracking the North American video game industry in 1995, and its Toy Retail Survey Tracking system once covered 63 percent of the American toy market. NPD acquired several services from Nielsen in January 2017 and co-purchased Intelect ASW in July 1999, building out the research behind what became Circana.

In October 2021, NPD was acquired by Hellman & Friedman. IRI and NPD completed their merger in August 2022, and the combined business adopted the Circana name in March 2023, giving the market one combined brand.

Is Circana a Legit Company? Who Owns It?

Yes, Circana is a real, operating business headquartered in Chicago, IL, not a shell built around an old brand name. Circana is jointly owned by Hellman & Friedman, Vestar, New Mountain Capital, and Circana management, the private equity backers who financed the IRI and NPD merger.

Circana publishes its U.S. CPG Growth Leaders report every April, most recently on April 9, 2026, naming the brands driving business growth nationwide. That yearly visibility signals a legitimate, active company, not a defunct legacy name.

Technology and Data: The Liquid Data Platform

Circana's technology platform is built around Liquid Data, a cloud-based analytics platform providing technology that integrates multiple datasets into one system teams can query directly on any page of the dashboard. Liquid Data combines point-of-sale data, AI, and consumer panel data across 26 industries, including grocery, health and beauty, and consumer electronics, and Circana counts almost 7,000 brands and retailers among its clients.

Clients value the census-based point-of-sale data repository and the ability to measure performance and omnichannel sales across a store's website and its physical shelves alike. Circana's technology is marketed as the most integrated and customizable in the category. It helps teams discover underlying consumer behavior driving a shift in market share, so a small team can accelerate decisions that once took a full quarter of time and take action on fresh insights the same week.

Who Are Circana's Competitors?

Circana's main competitors include NielsenIQ, Numerator, and SPINS, all offering some mix of point-of-sale data, panel data, and analytics to CPG and retail businesses. NielsenIQ competes most directly on scale, Numerator leans on app-based receipt scanning instead of Circana's data collection method, and SPINS focuses on natural and specialty channel data. Circana's pitch is one integrated service instead of several point tools to learn and stitch together.

How Many Employees Does Circana Have?

Workforce-data providers put Circana's headcount at roughly 6,000 to 9,000 people worldwide as of 2026, with estimates shifting over time and varying by how contractors are counted. That is a meaningful workforce for a business built from two century-old research firms now operating as one, serving businesses across dozens of industries at once.

Circana Company Culture

Circana's workplace culture is praised for flexibility and remote work capabilities, and internal survey figures show 75 percent of employees feel welcome when joining, 90 percent feel they have a lot of responsibility, 87 percent say people care about each other, and 85 percent feel they can be themselves at work.

Circana carries a 3.1 rating on Glassdoor based on employee reviews, an innovation-friendly culture by most accounts, with compensation and career growth cited most often as areas for improvement. Read the terms of an offer carefully before signing, current employees advise, since opportunities and workload both vary by team, and it can take time to learn which group is the right fit.

FAQ

What does the company Circana do?

Circana provides market research, advanced analytics, and data to measure consumer behavior and market share for CPG, retail, and durables manufacturers.

Is Circana a legit company?

Yes. Circana is the operating business formed from the 2022 merger of IRI and NPD, headquartered in Chicago and publishing research such as its annual CPG Growth Leaders report.

Who is Circana owned by?

Circana is jointly owned by Hellman & Friedman, Vestar, New Mountain Capital, and Circana management.

Who are Circana's main competitors?

NielsenIQ, Numerator, and SPINS are the businesses most often named alongside Circana in market research and retail analytics.

How many people work for Circana?

Estimates from workforce-data providers put the figure at roughly 6,000 to 9,000, depending on the source and how contractors are counted.

Is Circana a good company to work for?

Mixed to positive. Glassdoor rates it 3.1 out of 5, with flexibility and remote work praised and compensation cited most as a weak point.

Is Circana the same company as Carvana?

No. Carvana sells used cars online; Circana is an unrelated market research business. The similar names are a common source of confused searches, nothing more.

Bottom Line

Circana combines the data, technology, and reach of IRI and NPD into one business that helps almost 7,000 brands and retailers understand consumer behavior, market share, and growth across 26 industries. The Liquid Data platform gives clients a real edge in finding insights across store-level and omnichannel performance, and Circana's scale and Chicago headquarters back up its claim to legitimacy. Circana's Glassdoor rating suggests a workplace that is flexible and inclusive but uneven on compensation and leadership, worth weighing before joining or signing on as a client.