Social media benchmarking startup Unmetric secures $5.5M in Series B led by JAFCO

Chennai- and New York-based social media benchmarking startup Unmetric Inc. has raised $5.5 million (Rs 35 crore) in Series B round of funding, led by JAFCO Asia with participation from existing investor Nexus Venture Partners. The amount will be used to expand business and scale up its technology platform.

Founded in February 2011 by IIT Madras graduate Lakshmanan Narayan, Unmetric uses a combination of advanced algorithms and human computing power to deliver relevant data and benchmarking insights into social media metrics, and caters to several industries. Its deliverables essentially span key metrics such as content strategy, social media engagement, timing and frequency of tweets and posts on social sites.

Unmetric recently introduced LinkedIn analytics to its platform to provide brands with insights around their in-house content and career opportunities, helping them to determine the engagement and overall success of different publishing strategies.

The company has also rolled out an enhanced Twitter platform, called T+, which helps brands understand the effects of adopting hashtags, evaluate campaign engagement and optimise customer service teams.

The company claims that currently it has over 10,000 global brands in its database and offers competitive intelligence across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Its clientele includes big names such as Subway, Chevrolet, Under Armour, GroupM, Fleishman Hillard and LBi. The company has operations in California, Illinois and Coimbatore as well, besides Chennai and New York.

In April last year, the company raised $3.2 million in Series A funding, led by Nexus Venture Partners.

"After reviewing a number of these services, it is clear to us that Unmetric has built a solid leadership position and has the multi-dimensional team and technology to become the premier player in the next era of social media platform businesses. What Buddy Media did for publishing and Radian6 did for listening, Unmetric does for a new vertical of social media analytics: competitive intelligence," said Murli Ravi, head, JAFCO Asia.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)