Unmetric’s fresh funds to boost tech that help firms like Subway, Campbell's, Toyota track competition

BANGALORE: Unmetric, a social media analytics company, has raised Rs 34 crore ($5.5 million) in its second round, led by Singapore-based venture capital firm JAFCO Asia. Existing investor Nexus Venture Partners also participated.

Chennai’s Unmetric will use the money to expand in global markets and develop its technology platform. “Unmetric has the team and technology to become a premier player in the next era of social media businesses,” said Murli Ravi, head of South Asia investments at JAFCO.

The startup uses artificial intelligence to help companies understand their competitors’ moves and strategy by collating data from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It provides these insights to brands such as Subway, Campbell's, Toyota and Chevrolet.

“It’s just not always about fan count. Unmetric lets us know how we stack up against our competitors across all aspects of the social experience — fan engagement, response time and sentiment,” said Karie Ford, vice-president of media at Subway, the closely-held restaurant chain with more outlets than McDonald’s. “Unmetric’s daily alerts and customised reports are an essential tool to help our team keep abreast of all the social media activity across our category.”

Research firm BIA/Kelsey forecasts US social media advertising spending to reach $9.8 billion (Rs 60,000 crore) by 2016, from $3.8 billion in 2011. Industry experts say businesses are inundated with data as they strive to figure out how to engage with the connected consumer.

“Any veteran CMO or executive can look at numbers for social media, but without the correct comprehension and analysis, those numbers are absolutely meaningless,” said Brian Solis, principal analyst at research firm Altimeter Group.

Unmetric, founded by IIT Madras alumni Lakshmanan Narayan, Joseph Varghese and Kumar Krishnasami, started out by helping local businesses, such as restaurants and spas, understand and use social media.

The Chennai-based venture was launched in 2010 as EyesAndFeet. But in a year, the founders realised there was value in analysing the data being generated by large enterprises. They developed a technology platform that can sift through billions of bits of data on social media and analyse it through self-learning algorithms. Within a month, they raised a first round funding of about Rs 16 crore from Nexus Venture Partners.