Austin Ventures backs 'business listening' startup Workstreamer

There’s no shortage of tools for monitoring news and social networking sites, but Austin Ventures is betting on a new one. It just invested $3.5 million in a startup called Workstreamer that offers “business listening” tools.

The most common social monitoring service is exemplified by companies like Radian6 — they promise to help businesses see what their customers are saying on sites like Twitter. Workstreamer is trying to do something a little different. It wants to provide its users with business data about other companies, for example a competitor or a sales lead.

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That data comes from Twitter, LinkedIn, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, news publications, blogs, and more. Cofounder and chief executive Hank Weghorst said the Austin company filters content down to what’s most relevant, rather than passing along anything and everything that mentions a company. Thanks to its “social scoring” and other technology, Weghorst said that Workstreamer is able to winnow down 200 to 300 alerts a day about Apple to around a dozen, for example.

Nearly 10,000 users have signed up for Workstreamer since it launched about two months ago, Weghorst said, many of them sales and marketing professionals. The company will add pay features later this year, for example features designed for specific industries.

For more of Workstreamer’s perspective, cofounder Suaad Sait recently wrote a column for VentureBeat about why companies need an in-house analyst to monitor the industry and competitive landscape.