A District-based start-up that uses artificial intelligence to predict the outcome of legislation has received $7 million in funding, including investments from the Singapore sovereign wealth fund and from the Winklevoss twins, made famous from their lawsuits against Facebook.
FiscalNote, founded by a Potomac entrepreneur, uses data-mining software and artificial intelligence to predict the fate of the bills proposed by state legislatures and by Congress each year. The company claims 94 percent accuracy.
The young company has made a name for itself because of early investors such as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.
“We will be utilizing the resources for international growth and product expansion,” said founder Tim Hwang, 22. “We will be bolstering our engineering team in addition to looking at expanding our sales and marketing operations, domestically and abroad.”
The investing was led by several overseas funds including Visionnaire Ventures, a joint fund between Taizo Son and Temasek, the Singapore sovereign wealth fund.
Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Chevy Chase, Md.-based New Enterprise Associates, Winklevoss Capital, Enspire Capital of Singapore, Green Visor Capital and Middleland Capital also participated.
Local angel investors include former America Online chairman Steve Case and Duke Chung, co-founder of Parature. Last year, the start-up raised a $1.3 million round of funding led by Cuban and New Enterprise Associates.
The company, headquartered in downtown Washington, has more than 30 clients, including Uber, Planned Parenthood, the New Balance shoe and apparel company, Ally Financial, Allergan, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Republican and Democratic governors associations.
Hwang, who volunteered on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, co-founded the company in 2013 with boyhood friends Jonathan Chen and Gerald Yao. Chen became chief technology officer and Yao is chief strategy officer.
The company offers two subscription plans. One is a basic plan that charges clients $500 a month for the first user and $100 each for each additional user. A premium package includes more options.
FiscalNote grew out of Hwang’s work at Princeton, where he wanted to find a way to crack and synthesize the deluge of information from governments around the United States for an advocacy group he founded.
FiscalNote’s board of advisors reads like a Who’s Who of Washington and business. It includes include retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal; Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia University Business School; Alec Ross, former senior advisor to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton; former congressman Mike Ferguson; Bruce Mehlman of the boutique lobbying firm Mehlman Castagnetti; Tony Ng, director of architecture at eBay; LegalZoom chief executive John Suh and Sheel Tyle of NEA and S2 Capital.
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