Manzama, an Oregon-based startup whose software helps law firms keep abreast of key information on the clients, has announced a $1.3 million funding round. The round was led by Gold Bench Capital, with Seven Peaks and Cascade Angels also participating. With the money, Manzama plan to expand their product into the consulting and financial markets.
Manzama’s software mines social media messages, newspaper articles, blogposts and custom sources specified by the company to find the most important information on a client, and can be filtered to assess opinion/media impact in particular locations and industries.
“Manzama is a portal to content for the professional,” according Peter Ozolin, chief executive and a co-founder of Manzama, in discussion with VentureBeat. Talking about how Manzama works within a law firm, he remarked: “There might be 60,000 stories a month on merger subject matter.Maybe what you really want to know is what’s going on with merger activities in Latin America, in the renewable energy sector.
“[Using] easy kind of filters at Manzama, you will see what companies are trending up, you will see if any of your clients are mentioned, are they merging-sort-of topics or issues related to that, and you can filter against that certain information very easily.”
Clearly, this kind of technology has uses outside the law firm. Within commercial brands, for instance, the tool could be vital for assessing public opinion and pouncing on PR disasters.
With the new funding round, Manzama are also intending to build up an international presence, and expand their 32-strong team.
