Startup of the Day - Scan & Target

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The company of the day is Scan & Target, based in France. They provide real time text mining technology for unstructured text content. You will find below an interview with Bastien Hillen, CEO and co Founder of Scan & Target. All the best to them and congrats for being the startup of the day!

Website: www.scanandtarget.com.

Interview with Bastien Hillen, CEO and co Founder of Scan & Target

Who are you?

CEO and co founder.

How do you feel being the most promising ‘company of the day’ per Microsoft?

Excited and eager to show our technologies.

What did you do before creating your company?

Co-managing a company called Digiplug, sold to Accenture in 2007.

How did you get the idea? What s the genesis?

We saw that the usage of services allowing users to create text content (Twitter, Facebook, Meetic…) was skyrocketing and that there were no technologies available to analyze in real time these UGC despite the needs for control and monetization.

What do you sell? What is your company’s mission?

Real time text mining technology for unstructured text content (blogs, chats, forums, comments, emails, SMS, Twitter…) with applications for UGC moderation, real time contextual advertising, automatic answers, anti spam…

What is your market?

Every service allowing users to create text contents (internet or mobile) in any language.

Any clients? References? Partners?

118 218, Francaise des Jeux, SNCF, Jamespot.

Funding history? VCs? BA?

1.4M$ raised with BA & VCs (notably Credit Agricole Private Equity).

How many employees do you have? How many developers?

8 employees including 4 developers (+2 before the end of the year).

Are you hiring? If yes, what? Where?

Yes, developer in Paris.

Which platform are you building on? Why?

PHP and Microsoft SQL.

Do you have any Software IP? Is there something that you’re the only one to do on the market?

Real time contextual advertising technology (patent pending).

Who’s your role model?

Muhammad Yunus.

Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/internet areas?

Usage development of social networks, online gaming, Twitter…

Looking for funding? If yes, how much?

Not for the moment.

What about the BizSpark Program? What do you think? Are you going to join? Why?

Already member of BizSpark and Idees programs.

Any advice to young Software entrepreneurs?

Innovate! Innovate! Innovate!