Israel-based governmental data analytics provider ZenCity has completed a $13.5m funding round featuring Salesforce Ventures and M12, the strategic investment arms of enterprise software provider Salesforce and software producer Microsoft.
Venture capital firm TLV Partners led the round, which included Canaan Partners Israel, Vertex Ventures and i3 Equity Partners.
ZenCity collects data from unstructured sources such as social media posts and uses artificial intelligence to coordinate community feedback for local government consumption.
The approach can function as an alternative to community meetings currently regarded as unsafe due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The funding will go to product development and an expansion of the company’s strategic partnerships.
M12, Vertex Ventures and Canaan Partners Israel had taken part in ZenCity’s $6m series A round in September 2018, following the company’s participation in M12’s Innovate.AI contest earlier that year. It had previously received $1.7m in seed funding from Canaan Partners Israel.
Eyal Feder-Levy, chief executive of ZenCity, said: “Now more than ever, this investment is further proof of local governments’ acute need for real-time resident feedback. The ability to provide municipal leaders with actionable data improves the efficiency and effectiveness of their work”.
