Filtrbox, a startup for online brand monitoring and market intelligence that was part of the TechStars class of 2007, has announced that it closed a $1.4 million Series A funding round led by Flywheel Ventures and True Ventures at the end of last year. In conjunction with today’s funding announcement, the site is also launching an overhauled version of its main product,
Filtrbox G2.
The site allows users to monitor thousands of content sources, including blogs, Twitter, and FriendFeed. After inputting the terms they’d like to keep track of, Filtrbox can send them continuous updates, weeding out duplicates (you can also choose to receive periodic digests). Beyond typical metrics like relevance and how recently an article was published, Filtrbox can also gauge how relevant an article is by analyzing its source (obscure bloggers will have a lower priority than mainstream press).
The original version of the site launched in June 2008, and while the core functionality in the new version remains the same, it has a handful of notable improvements. Users with premium accounts (which cost $10/month) will now be able to monitor an unlimited number of search queries at the same time (previously there was a maximum limit of 25). Other new features include the ability to view results as graphs, export data for use in other programs, and collaboration tools that allow users to share search results, with granular privacy settings.
The site also offers a more basic free version, which has fewer features and restricts users to five simultaneous searches. Other players in this space include BuzzGain, which launched in January.