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player ready...A Chicago-based social media monitoring company announced Monday that it had raised $1.7 million from investors that include backers in Champaign, California and Washington state.
The company, Earshot, tunes into social media conversations for context related to brands or campaigns, and it alerts business customers with an interest in joining that conversation.
“This helps us to grow our team,” said founder and CEO David Rush, a veteran of Akamai Technologies and member of management teams that sold startups acquired in the 2000s. The company will add engineers and salespeople, he said. “This allows us to have runway for the foreseeable future.”
Joining Champaign-based Serra Ventures are California’s Mohr Davidow Ventures, TriplePoint Capital and Birchmere and Seattle’s Point B Ventures. Besides money, the investors provide advice on scaling up and positioning the company for later investment or acquisition, Rush said.
The company will earn revenue by offering its services on a monthly subscription plan for around-the-clock monitoring, or in support of regular events.
Earshot’s customers include Nissan, the Chicago White Sox and Lettuce Entertain You.