Founded by a former Microsoft lead, Singapore-based The Stakeholder Company’s aim is to help organizations maintain their public image by streamlining research with patented software. Using data visualization and algorithms, The Stakeholder Company can help prevent potential PR nightmares before they happen.
“We save years off building the right relationship network,” says founder Terence Lyons, who was formerly Microsoft’s global stakeholder engagement lead. The Stakeholder Company draws on Lyons’ experience strategizing how to revive the company’s reputation after it was hit with antitrust cases in the U.S. and Europe.
Red Dot Ventures announced this week that it’s pouring $490,000 of seed funding into The Stakeholder Company. Lyons says his firm, which was founded in January 2011, adopted an “ultra-lean, ultra-light” startup model to remain relatively independent from investment money and is already profitable. Current clients include HP, Nokia Siemens and Swiss agro-chemical producer Syngenta.
The Stakeholder Company uses patented “issue mapping and visualization software combining social network theory algorithms, crawlers, analysis engines and visualization modules.” It also tracks online content, including the blogosphere, Twitter and LinkedIn, in order to pinpoint the most influential people in the public conversation about an organization.
“We identify relationships that we think are relevant, and are you going to engage with these people, and hopefully that takes clients from tracing issues to becoming shapers of the agenda,” says Lyons. For example, the Stakeholder Company recently tracked and analyzed opinions expressed online about a pesticide manufacturer so the company could decide which environmental groups and activists to talk to.
Lyons says The Stakeholder Company offers an advantage over social analytic tools like Klout because it does more than identify key online influencers.
“That’s one tiny fraction of the relevant audience. We do that, too, but we also identify NGOs, international government organizations, politicians, academics, policy writers and activists, all of these groups, and meld them into one ecosystem so the company can map and apply algorithms to see what issues are trending,” says Lyon.
The company is headquartered in Singapore, with employees based in India, the UK, France and Papua New Guinea. It plans to open another office in London by the first quarter of 2013.