Signal aims to empower business leaders to make better decisions by analysing and processing vasts amounts of data from the world’s news and other relevant textual information (e.g., patents, regulation, …). In order to accomplish this goal, we need to be able to be part of the academic community and incorporate their best algorithms and principles.
A bit of history…
In 2013, like many a tech giant (Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft) Signal started life with three people in a garage. The garage in question was located in Belsize Park in North London and belonged to the Benigson family. David Benigson’s parents not only handed over the use of their garage but were also the inspiration behind the initial idea for Signal. The family’s successful executive search business sent an email newsletter that they were manually curating content for on a daily basis. Compiling the most recent and relevant stories from reliable sources each day for the newsletter was laborious. The idea to use artificial intelligence to automate the process was born.
Fast forward to the present day, and Signal now has 120+ employees in the UK and US and over 300 clients including Allen & Overy, Amnesty International, British Airways, E.ON, Quilter, TalkTalk, Thomas Cook and Whitbread. Signal has raised over $27m in investment from three funding rounds. Investors include GMG Ventures, MMC, Hearst Ventures, Frontline Ventures, Reed Elsevier, Local Globe plus others. And revenues have quadrupled since Signal’s Series A funding round in September 2016. Signal has won a host of awards and accolades from Bloomberg, Forbes, TechCity UK, The Europas and the Lloyds Bank National Business Awards for two year’s running. Needless to say, they’ve outgrown the garage.
Signal’s future plans are equally as ambitious and exciting. In 2018, Signal expanded operations into the US opening an office in New York. Expansions into APAC are planned for 2019.
The Practical Academic 