Israel-based Pursway (formerly known as Datanetis) announced its series A of $6 million led by Battery Ventures office in Israel. Pursway uses patent pending sentiment analysis technology on social networks, enabling clients to identify the influencers and followers for each of their products product within their customer database. They can then create campaigns that utilize this information in a measurable fashion that can be tied to success metrics. The company’s solution aims to increase ROI, cross selling and customer acquisition through better targeting.
Pursway has shown very promising results with their early customers, and has reported to have done over 100 installations with a client list that including Vodafone and Organe.
Bob Rapp, Head of User Communities at Vodafone Group said:
“The work we have done with Pursway on a recent product launch across Europe demonstrates the capabilities and value presented by the Pursway solution and its team above and beyond any other methods we have previously experimented with.”
Not to confuse with other data-mining solutions which scan forums, Facebook and Twitter, Pursway enables clients to identify the millions of “everyday influencers” using they’re logged data in existing customer databases, without infringing on the privacy of online conversations.
As stated on the company’s website: “we are not looking for the people that talk the most, post the most comments, or have the most connections. Our analysis is based on transaction and interaction data, revealing previously invisible social connections that drive actual and measurable consumer behavior“.
According to Elery Pfeffer, Pursway’s Co-founder and CEO:
“Our findings from over one hundred customer projects show that people who talk the most, post the most, or have the most connections are not necessarily the real influencers when it comes to actual buying behavior.”
This is Battery’s first deal done in its expanded capacity in Israel since Scott Tobin and David Sokolic moved over to expand the investment team. The deal was lead by Tobin, a Managing GP at Battery who did the entire $6M A round. The company said it plans to use the proceeds to expand its operations in Europe and North America.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
