Cognitive analytics startup NexLP just raised $3 million in fresh funding in a round led by Chicago-based Method Capital and joined by Dundee Venture Capital, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska.
“Having Midwest investors was very important to us,” said CEO Jay Lieb. "In Chicago, we don’t build technologies for the sake of building technologies but to provide value for customers today.”
NexLP uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to reduce risk for corporations by providing actionable insights from unstructured data sets such as email, chat logs and text messages. In addition to finding patterns and trends in data, the company’s platform, Story Engine, also analyzes the tone of conversations.
“We’ve spent a lot of man hours researching and developing sentiment analysis, which we refer to as emotional intelligence,” Lieb said. “What we want to understand are the emotional signatures from authors. Are they talking about negative or positive things, how are they rationalizing poor behavior, et cetera.”
The NexLP team features a handful of Relativity alums, but Lieb said the company’s platform isn’t just used for e-discovery. Story Engine can also assist with fraud and internal investigations and to ensure that companies in regulated industries are meeting compliance standards.
NexLP will use the funding to go on a hiring spree. The company has a current headcount of 10 full-time employees and is looking to triple that within the next year.
“The two areas we’re really focusing on are growing our marketing, sales and tech teams,” Lieb said. "We’re looking for content marketers, hardcore AI developers and UX/UI designers. We’re actually building out a whole UX/UI department.”
With this new round, NexLP’s funding total climbs to a little under $6 million. The startup closed its last round three years ago to the tune of $2 million the day before it took the stage at Techstars Chicago 2014 Demo Day.
Image via Shutterstock.
Does your startup have news to share? Let us know with a tip or a tweet @BuiltInChicago
