startupmania

Every couple of weeks, I hear of a new Israeli start-up specializing in analyzing information from the internet and making some sort of profit out of it.

This time of start-up always piques my interest, and I try and to find out as much as I can on the semantic standards they aim for, but unlike impressive projects from abroad – a world were information sharing is more important than any NLP algorithm or a 50,000 word word table – Israeli start-up are less than willing to give away any information. Each and everyone is sure that they are the ones holding the secret key to ultimate knowledge, and must keep it under lock and key at all costs.

Maybe they’re right, but years pass, and I have yet to see a single Israeli start-up (including ClearForest), that really managed to live up to its promises. When dealing with semantic web, we find out time and again, that the difference between dream and the grim reality of the BI world is huge. Not many people actually want to pay for CI, not many people know exactly how to turn these reports into cold cash and only Google is becoming smarter and faster.

Either way, I too, have caught the data sorting bug, and for years I’ve been dealing in technologies which turn Unstructured Data into charts or triplets of Structured Data. I’ve been creating information containers that can be dismantled and queried and even, somehow, convinced myself that this turns me into more of a professional.

Regular readers of this website are aware that I firmly believe the semantic web is the “holy grail” of the information world, and the promised day when we could ask and think in SPARQL, SQL or any other technology, as well as enjoy a global informational JOIN is coming. But as time goes by, I also think that the serious solutions will be coming from the big players that are opening more and more APIs to their information, and are not hoarding information to themselves. I also understand that the entire direction of semantic start-ups needs to change.

Just as all the projects that have tried for years to copy LinkedIn’s information and suddenly found themselves with many competitors who are using the API, so the semantic start-ups need to stop trying to fight against the mountains of information out there, and focus more on organizing and exporting the information inside their organization, or turn the spotlight on that which already arrives sorted through various existing APIs. If they must send their spiders out for Unstructured information, then, like anyone who deals with semantic web and isn’t Google, they also have to limit their scope.

Semantic start-ups also need to “get close to the money”. They have no chance, however, of offering an ad-based or subscription-based business model for information that Google gives away for free. One more tip – even semantic start-ups that are claiming to be textual advertisers, are not in high demand nowadays. There are plenty of other start-ups humming the same mantra for years, and the venture capital crowd really doesn’t want to hear about it anymore.

But why am I suddenly mentioning this? And why the long introduction? Turns out, that Leadspace (formerly Data Essence), has received a venture capital investment from JVP and the Vertex fund. I’m still not sure if Battery Ventures (who invested in Date Essence in 2007) have made any additional investments, but as soon as I know any more – you will.

Leadspace was founded by Amnon Mishor and Yaron Karasik and later brought on Yochi Slonim, one of the founders of Mercury and former CEO of Identify Software (which, in turn, was sold to BMC). According to Mishor, Leadspace’s CEO, Slonim is responsible for moving Data Essence’s direction “closer to the money”.

Mishor wouldn’t say anymore, but I must explain that a semantic start-up that can create business leads, is already something that makes more sense for the large organization to which it is trying to sell its service. We’re talking about an organized market, departments with big budgets, fixed prices for every lead and a semantic system that can cause the sales rep to work with it on a daily basis, and not simply tag it as a nice toy with cool graphs.

Mishor was not ready to reveal details regarding the company’s development direction, and preferred to define the product as one which shows the client “business opportunities”,  he did claim that “Leadspace is operating in a growing market, one in which many promising solutions are trying to utilize the information available on the internet for marketing purposes, and can create, automatically, information on a client with a level of focus and relevant that does not exist today.” Mishor added that following the recent investment, the company is set on recruiting programer and employ several dozen employees.

Haim Kopans, a partner at JVP Studio, is also aiming towards the semantic web solutions intended to help an organization sell its products. He says that “Leadspace is samrt to utilize the critical information on the web for the organization, and formulate it into marketing leas that help in sales and other marketing activities.” Kopans explains that “The company’s entrepreneurs have a strong technological background, and a Board head with a strong business background, it is the ultimate combination we look for when investing.”