LifeRaft, a startup whose platform uncovers potential threats through social media posts, expects to soon close a $2.5-million round of venture capital funding that it hopes will accelerate its already-impressive growth.
LifeRaft of Halifax identifies threatening keywords, such as “kill” and “gun,” on social media sources like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This then allows the user to drill into any post of concern to better understand the context of an individual’s comments.
LifeRaft attempts to be proactive in preventing threats in this new world of social interaction.
“If someone makes a public comment on social media — ‘I’m going to school with a gun tomorrow’ — we believe law enforcement should be able to respond quickly before a tragedy occurs with the intelligence LifeRaft provides,” co-founder and chief marketing officer Darren MacLeod said in an interview.
Since its launch last year, the company has completed a $700,000 round of seed funding from angel investors, complemented by $270,000 in funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The company expects to close a venture round at the end of April through a group based in Toronto.
The funding has the economic benefit of helping to grow a Halifax company, and the social benefit of helping authorities prevent harmful acts.
Recently, LifeRaft claimed, it alerted an organization of a person who shared in a social media post the intention to assassinate an American politician. Due to LifeRaft’s intervention, authorities in the area arrested a suspect.
“When you hear about all these terrible things happening in the world, it’s nice that we’re able to lend a helping hand,” marketing manager Hayley Fox said in an interview.
Since its October launch to the public, LifeRaft has gained traction with more than 100 users in various jurisdictions either piloting or actively paying for the platform.
LifeRaft’s users are mainly within post-secondary education and law enforcement. LifeRaft has resellers throughout Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia.
The company offers a subscription service in which users pay a monthly fee. It can start as low as $500 a month, based on the number of users and enabled features an organization requires.
“People live online; the whole face-to-face social engagement is disappearing quickly,” MacLeod said.
“Our markets were struggling to understand what’s happening. … ‘How do we filter through all the noise to get to know what we need to know?’”
LifeRaft has 14 employees and six people on its advisory board.
They include Jamie Nicoll, former commissioner of the Nova Scotia Securities Commission, as its vice-president of investment. Other team members include Yannick Marchand, director of research and adjunct professor at Dalhousie University; Jennifer Ozon, former RCMP manager of covert intelligence; and Daniella Degrace, former vice-president at Radian6.
Disclaimer: Entrevestor receives financial support from government agencies that support startup companies in Atlantic Canada. The sponsoring agencies play no role in determining which companies and individuals are featured in this column, nor do they review columns before they are published.
