Meltwater acquires Oxford University data extraction spinout Wrapidity

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.: February 21, 2017 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Meltwater, a global leader in media intelligence, is excited to announce the acquisition of Wrapidity Limited, an artificial intelligence (AI) spinout from Oxford University using breakthrough technology to automate data extraction from content on the web.

Wrapidity’s underlying technology will help Meltwater to improve and scale its industry-leading analytics software and address the volume of data coming from new sources as required for future product generations.

After evaluating over 20 companies globally in this space, the Meltwater team determined that Wrapidity is the strongest technology of its kind, complemented by an experienced engineering team led by co-founders Dr. Tim Furche, Dr. Giorgio Orsi and Dr. Giovanni Grasso.

Jorn Lyseggen, Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Meltwater, said: “Data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence are areas of strategic importance for Meltwater. Today, we are all drowning in unstructured data, and Meltwater is putting the whole weight of our company behind research efforts to unlock insights buried in the large amount of disparate data types found online.”

“We are delighted that, despite stiff competition from a number of other suitors, we are able to bring Wrapidity and many years of research from Oxford University, one of the world’s premier research institutions within AI, into the Meltwater family,” Lyseggen said.

Georg Gottlob, Professor at the Oxford University Department of Computer Science and Co-Founder of Wrapidity, said: “Instant access to products, places, people and news has changed our lives in the last decade. The same access, but at a much larger scale, is now changing business in ways we can’t even imagine yet. At Wrapidity, we have responded to this by developing a completely new AI-based technology for extracting massive amounts of relevant data from millions of websites.”

Tim Furche, Lecturer at the Oxford University Department of Computer Science and Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Wrapidity, added: “Meltwater already monitors and analyzes millions of articles per day across several languages. Combining Meltwater’s industry leadership and global footprint with Wrapidity’s advances in AI technology, we will be able to surface more accurate, timely and insightful content for Meltwater’s customers. Jorn and his team were visionaries in developing the software, services and business models to make such external web data usable for internal decision-making. We truly believe that companies of the future will hinge on Outside Insight, and we’re extremely excited to pursue this together.”

Wrapidity joins a growing number of recent acquisitions for the media intelligence pioneer as it continues to ramp up its technological offerings globally, with a focus on data science.

For Media Inquiries:

Media enquiries:
Stephen Murray or Mark Doonan
+447739022100 / +447830236254
meltwater@33seconds.co

Notes to editors

About Meltwater
With 20 years of experience in the field of online media monitoring, Meltwater is a global leader in media intelligence and social analytics solutions, helping to bridge the gap between Public Relations, Communications and Marketing departments with an all-in-one solution powered by AI-driven insights. Over 30,000 of the world’s most respected brands rely on Meltwater to help inform their marketing and communications strategies and executive decision making. With over 55 offices across six continents, Meltwater is a truly global partner with local customer success teams. Meltwater also supports the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), a nonprofit organization devoted to nurturing future generations of entrepreneurs. For more information, follow Meltwater on  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or visit www.meltwater.com.

About Wrapidity
Wrapidity helps businesses get the right data from the web, turning billions of webpages into a highly structured database of relevant data and enabling better search, recommendations and analytics for that business. Based on unique technology at the intersection of artificial intelligence, big data, and web technologies, Wrapidity specializes in collecting millions of records from hundreds of thousands of sources.

Wrapidity was launched by Oxford University Innovation, the research commercialization company of Oxford University, in 2015. It was founded by Tim Furche (Lecturer, Oxford University, CTO), Georg Gottlob (Professor, Oxford University, CSO), Giovanni Grasso (Professor, University of Calabria), Giorgio Orsi (Honorary Researcher, University of Birmingham), Christian Schallhart, and Leon Shpilsky (CEO) in 2015. Wrapidity translates significant foundational advances achieved in the 5-year DIADEM research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC). It is a spinout at the Computer Science Department at Oxford University, one of the highest ranked Computer Science departments worldwide and part of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division (MPLS). MPLS is one of the four academic divisions at the University of Oxford, rated the best in the UK in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment, and received £133m in research income in 2014/15. For more, visit www.wrapidity.com.

About Oxford University Innovation
Oxford University Innovation supports innovation activities across all University Divisions, managing technology transfer and consulting activities, and providing an innovation management service to clients around the world.

We provide access to technology from Oxford researchers through intellectual property licensing, spinout company formation and material sales, and to academic expertise through our Consulting Services team. The New Venture Support & Funding team supports investors or donors with an interest in early-stage ventures, and manages the Oxford Angels Network. Our Startup Incubator supports members and ex-members of the University who wish to start or grow entrepreneur-driven ventures that are not University spinouts.

Oxford University Innovation is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked 1st in the UK for university spinouts, having created over 150 new companies in 25 years. In the last reported financial year we completed 529 licenses and consulting agreements. Isis Enterprise, our innovation management consultancy, works with university, government and industrial clients from offices around the world.

For updates on innovations from Oxford, follow Oxford University Innovation on LinkedIn and Twitter or subscribe at https://innovation.ox.ac.uk/about/contact-us/#enquiry.