HomeFundingUK-based Signal raises $1.8 million to launch next generation market intelligence platform

UK-based Signal raises $1.8 million to launch next generation market intelligence platform

London-based market intelligence and information discovery platform Signal today announced a seed funding round of $1.8 million from top tier investors (Update – July 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link). The funding, led by Frontline Ventures, will be used to grow Signal’s team of data scientists, and further develop the platform ahead of a global launch.

Developed in partnership with world-renowned academics in text analytics, natural language processing and machine learning, Signal processes and analyses text by scouring over 75,000 news outlets, 3.5 million blogs and 100 social networks. Its technology enables any individual or business to access, analyse and monitor real-time information.

Signal users receive highly-tailored feeds on the companies, people, topics and trends that are important to them. Signal is challenging large legacy solutions in the media monitoring market – the majority of which came to prominence in the nineties – including the likes of Precise and Cision.

As well as leading the funding round, Frontline Ventures’ William McQuillan has also joined Signal’s board. Both Samos Investments and Reed Ventures are also involved in the funding round.

Former Global Head of Product Management at Bloomberg Russel Levi has joined Signal to drive product, sales and content strategies. Also joining Signal’s CEO David Benigson on the management team are CTO Wesley Hall, whose experience includes senior roles at Gumtree, Fab and eBay; as well as Head of Research Dr Miguel Martinez, a distinguished academic who has published papers on text mining, information retrieval, machine learning and natural language processing.

According to Russel Levi, the incumbents haven’t kept pace with the rapid pace of growth in online content: “The advent of social media has resulted in exponential growth in content creation and distribution. With billions of pieces of content produced everyday, companies are finding it increasingly hard to cut through the noise to find the information that will give them a competitive edge.”

Levi’s argument is echoed by Signal founder and CEO David Benigson, who conceived the idea for Signal in 2012: “Business has an information problem. The ever-growing abundance of data available online means it’s never been harder to find the right information at the right time. Our vision is a world in which everyone has at their fingertips the ability to make real-time, data-driven decisions.”

By the way: You can find out about other interesting startups from the UK in this list.

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Marko Srsan
Marko Srsan
founder @TimePrepCFA, blogger interested in startups and VC along with social media and project management, a drummer and a passionate FC Bayern Munchen fan :)
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