Polecat secures €850,000 investment from AIB Seed Capital Fund, private investors and Enterprise Ireland
23rd February 2012
Dublin, London and San Francisco based company Polecat has completed a funding round of €850,000 to accelerate the expansion of its operations.
The funding has been secured from three co-investors, namely The AIB Seed Capital Fund (co-managed by Enterprise Equity), Enterprise Ireland and existing private investors.
Having been declared “Best Emerging Technology Company” by Larry Ellison (CEO, Oracle Corp) in 2009, Polecat is now a fast growing company, currently with 22 full time employees, based in Ireland, the UK, the USA and the Netherlands. Polecat counts as customers the world’s largest companies, government organizations and consulting firms, including Shell, BP, HSBC, Silicon Valley Bank, Sony, Microsoft, Ernst & Young, McKinsey and EU, UK & Irish Government. The company already has significant revenues and is profitable.
MeaningMine is most easily described as a flexible enterprise search and business intelligence platform, capable of mining through the mountains of online and social media data to generate meaningful and relevant strategic insights into virtually any question. Given MeaningMine can demonstrably save analysts more than 50% of the time they spend finding and analysing relevant information, the company’s product is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of a very large ($23bn) addressable global market. Recent customer wins with BP, Ernst & Young and McKinsey bear testament to the product’s power and capability.
Founders James Lawn and Bronwyn Kunhardt established the business in 2008 and are both former executive board members of Microsoft UK.
As well as accelerating sales of its virtual analyst software platform in the UK and Europe, this significant investment will allow Polecat to expand its global presence. The investment is expected to lead to the creation of 30 jobs in Ireland over the next three years.
James Lawn, CEO of Polecat, said: “This latest investment is a vote of confidence in Polecat’s business strategy and technology development. The AIB Seed Capital Fund (co-managed by Enterprise Equity) and Enterprise Ireland are welcome additions to our existing investment partners. Without our investors’ support, MeaningMine would not be the phenomenal success it is today. Over the next year, we look forward to continued rapid European growth and expansion into the North American market.”
Tom Shinkwin, a Partner in Enterprise Equity Venture Capital, said: “We are delighted to be supporting this very able team who have deep domain knowledge and strong operating experience in overseas markets. We expect the business to add several more prestigious clients, as well as additional skilled jobs in the coming years.”
Enterprise Equity Venture Capital jointly manages the AIB Seed Capital Fund of €53 million. This fund was established in 2007 and invests amounts of up to €1.5 million in high growth start-up and early stage companies in Ireland. It is focused on investing in the technology, multimedia, wireless and medical device sectors. The Fund’s limited partners are AIB Bank and Enterprise Ireland.
