Thomas MacMillan File Photo
New Haven’s hottest homegrown grassroots digital information-sharing company plans to double its workforce thanks to $1.6 million in new financing.
The company, Chapel Street-based SeeClickFix, expects to grow to 50 employees over the next 12 months thanks to the new investment, which came from Elm Street Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Omidyar Network, Connecticut Innovations, and LaunchCapital.
Originally working out of downtown coffee shops, Ben Berkowitz (pictured above) started SeeClickFix in 2008 as a hyper-local problem-solving tool. Neighbors reported on potholes or break-ins or snow-clearing problems on their block. Other neighbors joined in. They tracked how officials responded (or didn’t respond) on the site. The company grew at a time when a renewed grassroots push for transparency in America coincided with the growth of citizen-driven web media.
Soon city government ditched its own sputtering attempts at creating a web citizen-response network and embraced SeeClickFix, using the site to field neighborhood complaints and then report on progress in fixing them. That revolutionized local government. The site also became a forum for daily, in-depth debate about how to tackle city problems. Hundreds of cities worldwide followed in signing up for SeeClickFix sites. Meanwhile, neighbors looked at SeeClickFix as a venue for uniting to help each other in emergencies. Today’s the company can plausibly bill itself as “one of the largest neighborhood networks in the world and serves as a platform for public agencies and citizens to communicate and improve communities.”
“Our expansion is a testament to the growing ecosystem of technology start-ups in New Haven and the talent and resources that have supported our growth,” CEO Berkowitz said in a release announcing the new funding. “We are proud to be a part of such a vibrant and innovative community.”
Click here to read the funding announcement (originally reported as $1.4 million, with another $200,000 subsequently added).