Attentio raises €525,000 for social media monitoring and analysis software suite

[Belgium] Brussels-based Attentio, a startup that markets a robust software suite for brand monitoring and analysis of conversations that are happening in social media, has raised €525,000 (or $786,000) in financing from the city’s regional investment firm SRIB/GIMB.

The financing consisted of an equity investment of €400,000 and a loan of €125,000.

This brings the total of capital raised by the company to about €3 million, according to co-founder and CCO Simon McDermott, although this is the startup’s first round of institutional funding since its inception in 2004.

Attentio offers a number of online market intelligence products that are designed to give marketers, PR people and business owners a way to track what’s being said about their company, brand, product or competitors across blogs, social networks and web-based message boards. This is a great way for these people to measure marketing campaign effectiveness, enhance existing competitive research initiatives and guard over the online reputation of the companies they work for or the brands they represent.

To showcase some of the technology behind these solutions, Attentio launched Trendpedia, a tool that enables users to discover trends in social media.

Brand monitoring and realtime online market intelligence is a field that’s quickly becoming saturated with companies battling for a piece of the pie (to name just a few: Radian6, Collective Intellect, BuzzLogic, Techrigy, Visible Technologies), although it’s worth noting that most of those making waves in this space are based in and focused on the U.S., while Attentio is going to use the extra capital primarily to strengthen its foothold in Europe.

McDermott tells me things are moving fast for Attentio, and that its 20 employees had brought Attentio close to profitability prior to the funding. He says the additional financing was needed to accelerate its current growth, and that he sees a big consolidation wave coming in the next few years when it comes to the social media monitoring space.

Attentio’s focus on Europe should then come in handy because virtually none of the other players in the field have crossed the Atlantic properly, McDermott hopes.

Time will tell.