Tapajyoti Das has put his Masters degree in computer science on hold so that he can focus all his (considerable) energy on the demo and launch of his young lead-generation company, LeadSift.

LeadSift can scan the tweets of people in a geographic location and automatically find those who are intent on making a purchase. The purpose is targeted marketing, so an auto dealer, for example, could find a person who’s looking for a certain make of car, track that person down and help him or her find a suitable vehicle. What’s more, LeadSift can rank the people tweeting about a purchase so the most likely candidates appear first on the list.

“Our secret sauce is the ranking feature,” said Das, a native of Calcutta, India, who moved to Halifax to attend Dalhousie University. ``Examining just those 140 characters, we’ve built up a semantic analysis [that can rank the people most likely to make a purchase].” He added that he has developed algorithms that analyse 20 factors to find people who want to buy something. It is all done automatically, and the LeadSift team is continuing to develop more features to add to the functionality of their site.

Lead generation through social media is a hot market these days, and Das understands there are competitors in the Maritimes, other parts of Canada and around the world. In fact, New Brunswick-based N-Gauge is now proceeding through the McKenzie Accelerator, and is working on a similar project, focusing on leads in real estate.

Das first drew the attention of the tech community in Halifax last September when he demoed an early version of his software at DemoCamp, a tech forum organized by electronic collaboration company TitanFile and Dalhousie’s Computer Science faculty. The company was then called Gistof, and over the winter Das and his partner teamed up with two other programmers to develop the product into LeadSift.

The company is one of two Nova Scotian startups accepted into the Launch36 accelerator, organized by PropelICT in New Brunswick. That means that Das and his colleagues are focused on accelerator’s Demo Day, which will be held in Moncton on June 26.

LeadSift plans a launch for targeted customers in August. The company is now working with or searching for a few select early adopters in three sectors where it believes it can get the best traction -- car dealers, realtors and insurance salespeople.

The equity investment in the company so far has been contributions from the founders.