Austin-based PR analytics platform TrendKite had two big announcements last week, as it closed out a Series A funding round and hired a new CEO.
TrendKite raised $3.2 million from Mercury Fund and Silverton Partners and announced former Dachis Group CTO Erik Huddleston as the company’s new CEO. Former CEO and co-founder Matt Allison will stay on with the company as chief product officer, while his other two co-founders AJ Bruno and Patrick Brannen will continue to serve as president and CTO, respectively.
At Dachis Group, Huddleston was one of the chief tech architects of the company’s social monitoring platform, which was recently acquired by leading social marketing platform Sprinklr. By joining TrendKite, Huddleston is bringing his considerable expertise in social listening to another Austin based martech company.
Speaking to TechCrunch about his move, Huddleston was enthusiastic about TrendKite’s market potential:
Huddleston also praised the founders’ vision, as well as their experience in the industry and in sales: “The only thing they were really missing was the product component.” Not that he was criticizing the product itself (he recalled talking to customers who “raved” about it), just suggesting that the company needed someone with a strong product background at the top.
TrendKite’s platform focuses on tracking the results of PR activity, such as news monitoring, media mentions, sentiment analysis and influencer tracking. This puts it directly in competition with San Francisco-based AirPR, which recently announced its own funding of $4 million.
