# Chris Kelly

> Chris Kelly is the founder and CEO of Upwave, the San Francisco software company that grew out of survey startup Survata and now measures brand outcomes across advertising channels. A University of Notre Dame graduate whose path includes McKinsey, Matrix Partners, SavvyMoney and several early ventures, Kelly has spent his career trying to make slow, opaque research faster and more useful. His current work argues for independent, privacy-conscious measurement, predictive brand lift and a sharper distinction between delivering an ad and proving that it changed anything.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Upwave
- **Organizations:** Upwave, Survata, SavvyMoney, Matrix Partners, McKinsey & Company, LicketyShip, DeliveryEdge, Y Combinator, Ad Council
- **Education:** Degrees in finance and economics, University of Notre Dame
- **Known for:** Co-founded Survata and took the company through Y Combinator's Summer 2012 batch., Led Survata's evolution from an online survey marketplace into Upwave, a cross-channel brand-outcomes measurement platform., Raised successive seed, Series A and Series B rounds, including a reported $14 million Series B in 2018.

## Career timeline

- **High school** — Started a web design business with a friend.
- **College** — Started a textbook exchange and a same-day delivery venture; he later described the former as mildly successful and the latter as failed.
- **2004-2005** — Co-founded same-day delivery company LicketyShip.
- **2005-2007** — Worked as a business analyst and management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
- **2007-2009** — Worked as an associate and investor at Matrix Partners.
- **2010-2012** — Worked in marketing and business development at early-stage fintech company SavvyMoney.
- **2012** — Co-founded Survata with longtime friend and fellow Notre Dame alumnus Aaron Wenger; the company joined Y Combinator's Summer 2012 batch.
- **2013** — Survata announced $1.5 million in seed funding to expand product development, methodology and sales.
- **2015** — Survata raised a $6 million Series A led by IDG Ventures, bringing reported funding at the time to $8.1 million.
- **2018** — The company raised a $14 million Series B.
- **2020** — Rebranded Survata as Upwave to reflect its evolution from survey collection into predictive brand-marketing analytics.
- **2025** — Published a case for the rise of media networks beyond retail and presented Upwave's AI-assisted brand-outcomes work at the NewFronts.
- **2026** — Discussed agentic AI, predictive brand lift and AI's effect on brand discovery in interviews and industry commentary.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Survata and took the company through Y Combinator's Summer 2012 batch.
- Led Survata's evolution from an online survey marketplace into Upwave, a cross-channel brand-outcomes measurement platform.
- Raised successive seed, Series A and Series B rounds, including a reported $14 million Series B in 2018.
- Built a platform that Upwave says has measured more than one trillion ad impressions for more than 1,000 advertisers.
- Serves on the Ad Council's Leadership Council.
- Has spoken at industry events including Cannes Lions, Advertising Week, Beet Retreat and the Advertising Research Foundation.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — Shared a Cannes 2026 experiment in which he asked ChatGPT for a pre-mortem before the event, then compared the prediction with his post-event recap.
- **2026-07** — Joined the AI Edge Podcast to discuss AI-driven brand discovery, advertising models for AI companies and predictive brand lift.
- **2026-01** — Argued that agentic AI will shift the burden of campaign execution by making large numbers of small optimization decisions in real time.
- **2025-05** — Presented Upwave's cross-channel brand-outcomes and AI-assisted optimization work at the NewFronts.
- **2025-03** — Published an argument that media networks would spread beyond retail into sectors including travel, financial services and software.

## Links

- Website: https://www.upwave.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherkelly/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/upwave
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Upwave
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/survata

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/chris-kelly
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-18