企业在线问答公司AnswerDash（Qazzow）获得种子轮290万美金融资AnswerDash成立于2012年，总部位于美国西雅图。
AnswerDash通过技术嵌入功能答案帮助企业更好地回答消费者的问题，从而帮助企业削减相应的用户支持开支，同时保持用户不流失。
本轮融资由Voyager Capital 领投，Arnold Venture Group、Summit Capital、The W Fund、WRF Capital跟投。
UW spinout AnswerDash raises $2.9M to support growth of online contextual help platform
What started as an idea inside the Information School at the University of Washington is now a full-fledged business that’s raising cash from venture capital firms.
UW-spinout AnswerDash today announced a $2.9 million seed investment round led by Voyager Capital, with participation from existing investors WRF Capital, Summit Capital, the W Fund, and Arnold Venture Group.
AnswerDash, formerly known as Qazzow, wants to fundamentally change how online businesses answer questions that customers might have.
Rather than forcing people to comb through an FAQ or use a written-based solution like email or live chat, AnswerDash’s technology embeds answers within a website’s functionality.
The company helps its clients offer customers instant, contextual answers to a question they may have while browsing a given web page on desktop or mobile. When a user clicks on something they have a question about — this could be an image, link, header, etc. — AnswerDash employs a machine learning search process to retrieve the most relevant questions and answers.
The idea is to reduce the amount of time customers search for answers online, ultimately helping businesses improve the consumer experience while retaining revenue that previously could have been lost due to user frustration.
“By enabling users to quickly and easily find their own answers to commonly asked questions, AnswerDash prevents costly and repetitive help requests that would otherwise arrive via e-mail, phone or live chat,” explained CEO Bill Colleran. “AnswerDash also reduces the likelihood that online shoppers will abandon their shopping activity because they fail to receive answers to their questions simply and intuitively.”
Colleran, a former longtime CEO of Impinj, joined AnswerDash in June when he replaced co-founder Jake Wobbrock, who started AnswerDash back in 2012 with fellow UW professor Andrew Ko and their Ph.D student, Parmit Chilana.
AnswerDash co-founders Jake Wobbrock and Andrew Ko.Wobbrock and Ko have held the CEO and CTO roles, respectively, at AnswerDash for the past three years —Chilana went on to become a professor at the University of Waterloo — but will return to their careers in academia this fall.
Wobbrock told GeekWire that “this was always a planned transition.” The co-founders will remain involved with AnswerDash in an advisory capacity, while Wobbrock will serve as a board observer.
“Our goal as academic co-founders was to take the technology we created out into the world,” he said. “We wanted to get the startup going, get it funded, build a great launch team, refine our product, and get customers and value proof-points. Once we had achieved this, we knew that the best people to take the company to the next level would be seasoned industry executives with years of experience building companies and taking products to market.”
The leadership baton is now passed to Colleran, who previously spent 14 years leading RFID technology-maker Impinj, and VP of Engineering Kevin Knoepp, who joined the team in January after spending more than two decades as a back-end technology executive.
“AnswerDash will continue its evolutionary arc from a small, research-based product team to a vibrant, innovative and fast-growing SaaS company,” noted Colleran.
Colleran said that the company has “matured dramatically” since starting three years ago. Now that the startup has established product-market fit — it has “dozens of customers” like Chef, PetHub, and PipelineDeals — it will use the fresh cash to expand its sales and marketing efforts while continuing to improve the AnswerDash platform.
Colleran has lofty ambitions for AnswerDash, which makes money with a tiered subscription model based on the amount of usage its tool gets and also produces unique analytics to clients that can provide insight into what types of questions customers are asking while browsing through a given website.
“AnswerDash’s service enables more efficient, succinct and clear communication over the web and on mobile devices, so over time our market will grow to include almost every website and mobile app,” he said. “That’s a huge opportunity.”
Total funding for the 13-person company is now $5.3 million.
来源：GeekWire
营销数据服务公司Unified获1000万美元投资
Unified成立于2011年，总部位于纽约。
Unified通过行业先进的数据平台为专业营销人员提供分析、方案和广告工具。目前该公司有超过600个客户，包括全球2000强企业和他们的广告代理。
该投资由Silicon Valley Bank提供。
Social Marketer Unified Raises $30M Round Led by iHeartMedia
Unified is announcing that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding, plus a $10 million credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank.
That sounds like a nice chunk of change, but equally noteworthy is the fact that the equity funding was led by iHeartMedia (the radio and digital media company formerly known as Clear Channel). The two companies previously announced a strategic partnership to develop custom products for advertisers, as well as an investment of undisclosed size.
“We specifically chose iHeart because of the strategic value they brought to table in terms of data sets — it’s not just cash,” said Calvin Lui, Unified’s president and chief strategy officer. After all, Lui noted that in addition to its social advertising business, Unified aims to bring data together from a variety of marketing channels, an approach he contrasted with other social marketing companies that are mere “point solutions.”
“We have such rolling momentum with these major brands that we continue to win flagship relationships with, and all of that is premised on having a system of record for all of our data, so we can collect information from multiple sources, extract value and execute against that,” Lui said.
The new money will allow Unified to continue developing its product and find new markets. Lui emphasized that that doesn’t just mean geographic expansion but also adding new products.
Specifically, Vice President of Corporate Communications Dave Donohue said the company plans to expand its data offerings beyond social media, starting with broadcast advertising — another area where it would make sense to work with iHeartMedia. (To be clear, while Unified expands its data business, the ad-buying product will remain focused on social media.)
It’s been more than three years since Unified announced raising a $14 million Series A. Asked why the company waited so long to raise more money, Lui said that the team knows how to “deploy capital very efficiently.”
“We understand that there are cycles to the business and the industry and we’re here for the long-term,” he added.
Unified customers include Tesla, 22Squared, Lenovo and Toyota. Other investors in the Series B include Advance Publications, Upfront Ventures and Foundry Group.
Over the past couple of years, Unified also acquired analytics companies Awe.sm and PageLever. Donohue said the company is open to making more acquisitions, “but this round isn’t aimed at funding acquisitions.”
来源：TC
数据分析SaaS Discern获A轮2000万美元投资
据报道，数据分析SaaS Discern获A轮 2000 万美元投资。
Discern成立于2009年，总部位于旧金山。主要功能是通过特有的数据集、有效的专业知识和技术，为用户提供可行的投资见解。
该轮投资由Artiman Ventures领投。
Discern Raises $20M in Series A Financing
Discern, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a financial decision-making platform for investment professionals, raised $20m in Series A financing.
The round was led by Palo Alto-based Artiman Ventures.
The company will use the funding to expand its platform beyond the Energy industry to offer modules for Real Estate, Consumer Retail, Banking/Financial Services and other sectors.
Founded in 2009 and led by Harry Blount, CEO, Discern provides a cloud-based platform connecting financial decision-makers to synthesized data and content that is personalized to an individual user’s investment process. The company’s solution continuously scans the user’s universe of real-time data (public and commercial) then signals the user when new, relevant data surfaces.
Discern data can be viewed by sector, by company, and/or by the user’s own parameters, automating and enhancing the work of the traditional data research associate.
The company also has offices in New York.
来源：FINSMES
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