Positive signals for Queen Mary startup

Media monitoring startup Signal, co-founded by Queen Mary University of London PhD student Miguel Martinez-Alvarez, has raised $1.8m.

The round was led by Frontline Ventures, and joined by Samos Investments, Reed Elsevier Ventures, and a number of individuals. Cash from the investment will go into increasing the number of data scientists Signal has on hand and further platform development ahead of a global roll out. As part of the deal, Russel Levi, former global head of product management at Bloomberg, will join Signal to develop its marketing strategies while Wesley Hall, a former Gumtree and eBay executive, will join as its chief technology officer.

The technology unpinning Signal was developed by Martinez-Alvarez and his Queen Mary research team in conjunction with researchers from the universities of Glasgow, Twente, Essex, and UCL. Its platform uses text analysis and machine learning to monitor online news sites, blogs, and social networks to provide companies with a real-time media monitoring service.

Levi said: “The advent of social media has resulted in exponential growth in content creation and distribution. With billions of pieces of content produced everyday, companies are finding it increasingly hard to cut through the noise to find the information that will give them a competitive edge.”