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Danielle Morrill, Kevin Morrill and Andy Sparks are the founders of
Mattermark, which is one of the most important platforms being used by investors right now. The startup merges big data and machine learning and applies this to the process of deal-making for investors.
Mattermark has some pretty ground breaking analytics, which assist thousands of users to reasearch, prospect, track and benchmark signals of growth as well as news coverage for more than 1 million tech companies globally. The startup was monetised straight off the bat, with a Pro account costing a user US$399 a month and the opportunity for larger firms to obtain a more customised pricing structure. The types of customers currently using the application include VC Firms, angel investors, private equity firms, hedge funds and consulting firms to name a few.
Overnight, it was announced that Mattermark has closed a US$6.5 million Series A funding round. This brings the total amount raised over the last two years since the company launched to US$11.5 million. The latest round was led by
Foundry Group, there were also reportedly a number of existing investors that also participated in this round, however CEO and cofounder Danielle Morrill has declined to name these to any media for the time being.
What is apparent though is that the full list of investors since the early days, as listed on Angel List is truly impressive, it includes: Sherpa Ventures, Sierra Maya Ventures, Steve Loughlin, Streamlined Ventures, Structure Capital, Elliot Loh, Enrico Pandian, Eric Ries, Felicis Ventures, FG Angels Syndicate, Flybridge Capital Partners, Gramercy Fund, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Height Securities, Ignition Venture Partners, Inflection Ventures, Jay Wiley, Jeff Lawson, Jesse Engle, Lily Limusanno & David Lee, 500 Startups, Andreessen Horowitz, Carter Rabasa, Damien Tanner, Daniel Clark, Data Collective, Eileen Burbidge, Manyam Mallela, Matt Monahan, Michael Liou, Naveen Selvadurai, New Enterprise Associates, Paige Craig, PejmanMar Ventures, Raju Indukuri, Trent Gegax, Ullas Naik, Version One Ventures, William Mougayar and Y Combinator.
The money will be used to 'deepen the product' according to
Morrill's interview with Pando's Michael Carney yesterday.
The next phase for Mattermark will be about deepening the product, Morrill says. This will mean adding more analytics tools as well as publishing more, and more thoughtful research reports. When it comes down to it, however, Morrill knows that Mattermark can never address all the analysis needs of its customers internally. Instead, she’s focused on giving users the best raw data available and empowering them to do interesting things as a result. This means ingesting as much “noise” as possible and distilling it down into clear, actionable “signal.” It just takes the domain expertise of Mattermark’s clients to make use of that signal. By focusing on data, Morrill hopes to avoid doing custom service work and keep Mattermark a self-serve platform.
One of the most interesting aspects about Mattermark that keep investors and other industry professionals religiously subscribed to the service and daily emails, is the company's growing ability to extend beyond just giving information on individual businesses.
As the startup begins to analyse more businesses, especially at a global level, it should be able to start to give indications or forecasts on growing trends within industry sectors. Morrill has expressed previously in various interviews how she would have loved to have been around to predict the trends we currently see in the ride-sharing space across the world.
Whether Mattermark becomes a platform similar to that we see on Yahoo! Finance and Bloomberg for the startup space remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, investors love data and Mattermark is yet to disappoint in delivering this to them.
