Mattermark, the business intelligence site that pivoted out of YC-backed curation site Referly, is today announcing that it has raised a round of $6.5 million, funding that the startup will use to build out its ambition to be a “B2B Google.”
By that, it means creating structured data for people on the hunt for company information across the messy and disorganised Internet and its many available sources of primary and secondary data. Or, as new investor Brad Feld of the Foundry Group puts it, uncovering a “valuable secret hidden in plain sight.”
As part of this Series A, Feld is joining Mattermark’s board of directors. It brings the total raised by the startup to $11.3 million.
When San Francisco-based Mattermark first opened for business in 2013, the company’s first moves were aimed squarely in its backyard: it provided deal information to VCs and others in the world of startups, tapping into the concept of big data to create a signalling platform to monitor deal flow and better anticipate what will be the next big thing without investing hours in the process of doing so.
“We don’t believe we can replace investors’ ability to build relationships with entrepreneurs, but we do think we can help them source opportunities more efficiently and reduce the chances of missing a whale,” co-founder Danielle Morrill said at the time.
Fast forward to today, and that is still a big part of its business, but the funding will also be used to try to expand that vision to touch a wider ring of potential customers and business situations. Morrill says the funding will be used “to invest even more heavily in organizing the world’s business information through software automation and machine learning.”
Mattermark is not disclosing revenues but says that it now has 500 businesses as customers — with typical end users being “dealmaking professionals in venture capital,” sales, marketing, merchant and investment banking, commercial real estate, corporate development, private equity, hedge funds, and consulting firms. The service itself tracks data on some 1 million businesses.
It’s the bigger vision and potential of where that 1 million might go in the future that interests Feld and other investors. “Mattermark is bringing science to the art of dealmaking by organizing content into structured data, and we are thrilled to join them in indexing the growth signals of more than 250 million companies worldwide,” Feld said in a statement.
In addition to Foundry Group as lead investor, the Series A includes participation from existing backers, although Mattermark doesn’t specify which. 
The full list is pretty massive. It includes 500 Startups, Andreessen Horowitz, Carter Rabasa, Damien Tanner, Daniel Clark, Data Collective, Eileen Burbidge, Elliot Loh, Enrico Pandian, Eric Ries, Felicis Ventures, FG Angels Syndicate, Flybridge Capital Partners, Gramercy Fund, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Height Securities, Ignition Venture Partners, Inflection Ventures, Jay Wiley, Jeff Lawson, Jesse Engle, Lily Limusanno & David Lee, Manyam Mallela, Matt Monahan, Michael Liou, Naveen Selvadurai, New Enterprise Associates, Paige Craig, PejmanMar Ventures, Raju Indukuri, Sherpa Ventures, Sierra Maya Ventures, Steve Loughlin, Streamlined Ventures, Structure Capital, Trent Gegax, Ullas Naik, Version One Ventures, William Mougayar and Y Combinator.
The startup is also now hiring, on the lookout specifically for people who can help build out its big-data promise, and those who can sell the idea to would-be customers.
