Conshohocken-based iQ Media receives $9 million in funding from Edison Partners

Tom Paine

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A while back I wrote half-jokingly about noticing Edison Partners' long period of absence from making new investments in the Philly area. But now they're back; they just must have been looking many years for the right opportunity to invest.

The company is Conshohocken-based (you know, Google spell-check has never gotten Conshohocken correct) iQ Media, on which Edison bet the entire $9 million Series B stake. iQ Media had previously received a Series A of an undislosed amount from GMH Ventures of Newtown Square, according to Crunchbase. Edison Managing Partner Michael Kopelman will take a board seat. An investor from GMH, Michael Holloway,  retains one.

iQ Media essentially makes use of every availably data-producing tool from TV and online systems (though I'm not sure they are as far along in online) to give its clients access to a magnitude of analytic data. This includes data sources many people have little konwledge of. For instance, a company spokesperson explained to me via email "that it captures the closed caption text and then the system searches against it for mentions of your brand or organization on TV. It also do the same for logos. You can search the database or upload your own logo and iQ can then search its TV capture for where it was seen on TV. For other media, such as online news, blogs, and social media, anything that is not behind a paywall (where you pay for a subscription to a news service) iQ can ingest and search against."

iQ Media found its first niche in PR departments and gradually spread deeper into the marketing and media planning functions. There are several competitors, but iQ Media has seemingly taken off, Since releasing its flagship media intelligence platform in 2010, iQ media has grown from an organization of 5 to 80+ media intelligence professionals. The endorsement of Edison is another powerful boost, of course, as CEO Jon Derham acknowledged.

Jon Derham

Derham has an intersting background. A Villanova grad, he spent considerable time at Advanta, which was sort of great social experiment in business that was wiped out by the recession, and even served as an assistant lacrosse coach at Nova.

But lets hope its not another decade until Edison invests again in the Philly market.

And another story I've got take up; the increasing number of successful Nova tech entrepreneurs.  They don't get the ink of
some other schools, and success may come a bit later in life,  but its definitely happening.