Mattermark (YC S12) raises a $6.5M Series A to keep VCs in the know

http://pando.com/2014/12/16/got-startup-data-mattermark-raises-a-6-5m-series-a-to-keep-vcs-in-the-know/

by dmor • 12 years ago

46 22 12 years ago

pbreit• 12 years ago

The VC industry seems like a tiny niche. But I feel like I've heard them talk about being a more general lead identification tool which has far more upside (ie, "show me all the companies in Seattle with at least 5 salespeople and at least $5m in funds raised").

manticore_alpha• 12 years ago

Correct, like a better more niche discoverorg

dmritard964• 12 years ago

A lot of the advice I have seen though is too take a niche industry and own it, then generalize. Its much easier to grab traction when you really know you exact sales targets.

notahacker• 12 years ago

The ironic thing about the niche in question is that it's arguably one that can be tackled quite happily without VC money (tech-savvy, relatively easy-to-reach B2B market, decent margin on an individual sale, small total market size but acquirer-friendly and can organically grow into other areas of finance intel driven by customer development).

Raising $11.5M in total commits them to generalising though, and there's no shortage of competent competition in the market-data aggregation space.

andymoe• 12 years ago

Congratulations Danielle and team, really enjoy following along with your adventures via twitter and enjoy the daily newsletter from Mattermark. You're openness and candor is refreshing as well.

eriksie• 12 years ago

Congrats Danielle!

philjackson• 12 years ago

Danielle seems like a great founder.

benhamner• 12 years ago

Congratulations! Y'all have had a wild ride so far, for being among the coolest and most practical companies in the data space

dmritard964• 12 years ago

So is this just an aggregator of crunchbase/angellist/linkedin or some combination of scrapers and other sources?

maxpain• 12 years ago

yes basically.

i worked at a firm that used mattermark, datafox, etc. the amount of inaccurate, duplicate, and missing data was very high. all of these services are like a mashup of data sources that are not very good.

there's a reason bloomberg, thomson, etc. focus on public companies.

birken• 12 years ago

It is comical how often sources like crunchbase (and even the press) are wrong. Though it makes sense, private companies basically have no incentive to release any sort of data unless it plays to some narrative they are trying to create.

For example, the date the company was founded is often wrong in Crunchbase (it is reported as more recent than it actually was). Many companies raise money and don't disclose it for months (staying under the radar). Many acquisitions never publicly release the price (so the founders can claim it was a "success" regardless of whether it was).

It is just a tough space to be in to try to make something of the data that is available. Public companies are of course much easier.

benoits• 12 years ago

congrats Danielle and Kevin (and team!), you guys are awesome :-)

tapp• 12 years ago

@dmor:

First - congratulations to you and your team on the raise.

Second - a question: your last post on the topic from June 28th announcing your 2M second seed funding said that after 27 consecutive months spent pursuing some kind of funding, it was time for you to take a break from fundraising mode.

Given that was less than 6 months ago, it doesn't seem like you took much of a break after all :) Would you be willing to provide more insight and details re: what exactly changed?

https://medium.com/mattermark-daily/mattermark-has-raised-2m...

steathf0under• 12 years ago

she gives it away in this interview I believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW8vbDLdlqU

in a word... "war-chest"

dmor• 12 years ago

Thank you.

After we announced the 2nd seed round the interest in us increased and we ended up raising more, and then when Brad Feld (at Foundry Group) offered to do the FG Angels syndicate on AngelList I figured "why not?" and I was curious to see the internal mechanics of doing one of those. So basically we raised because we've always be fans of "take money when you can".

By this point we had a ton of momentum in sales, had clarified our vision a ton in our month-long company retreat in August, and were not in a position of desperation for once. I felt like I should take heed of the old advice that "the best time to raise is when you don't need the money" so we did some analysis, had some coffees, and picked 6 firms to pitch. We committed to testing the market again.

This time, it worked.

This stuff is just messy.

jfornear• 12 years ago

Congrats!

Mattermark (YC S12) raises a $6.5M Series A to keep VCs in the know

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