Civic intelligence technology firm Curate Solutions, based in Madison, was bought by Washington, D.C.-based FiscalNote Inc., a technology provider of global policy and market intelligence.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed in a Tuesday announcement.
FiscalNote approached Curate a few months ago and negotiations for the acquisition deal moved quickly from there, Curate CEO and co-founder Taralinda Willis said.
"(FiscalNote is) really interested in Curate because they want to increase the depth of their data at the local level specifically," Willis said. "They do state and federal so well and we do local so well, it seems to be a perfect match."
The 24-person Curate team will join FiscalNote and the company is maintaining its Madison office at 22 N. Carroll St. FiscalNote plans to invest in and grow its presence in Madison, Willis added.
Founded in 2016, Curate raised a total of $2.2 million in equity financing, according to Willis. It's backed by investors including Wisconsin's gener8tor, Idea Fund of La Crosse, Wisconsin Investment Partners, BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation Inc. and Golden Angels Investors, as well as Allos Ventures, which has offices in Indianapolis and Cincinnati.
Curate uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to track city and county committee meeting minutes and agendas from more than 12,000 municipalities across the United States. Its tools enable customers ranging from WEC Energy Group Inc. to the Wisconsin Realtors Association to automatically follow changes in local ordinances that could impact their business or industry.
In 2017, Curate accurately predicted that Foxconn Technology Group would build its manufacturing campus in Racine County before it was announced months later. More recently, Curate has focused on tracking local legislation, Willis said.
FiscalNote was reportedly valued at $1.4 billion after it raised $40 million in May and has previously made plans to go public, according to the Washington Business Journal. Its brands include CQ, Roll Call, Oxford Analytica and VoterVoice.
The company has made several other acquisitions this year, including D.C.'s Fireside, which makes software used by Congress, and Australia's TimeBase, which builds legislative research and tracking tools. With the Curate deal, the company is interested in tapping into local government intelligence.
"It has become obvious that a lot of that regulatory activity is happening at local levels of government,” said FiscalNote founder and CEO Tim Hwang. “I’m very excited to join forces to better serve our clients’ legislative and regulatory data needs spanning everything from small domestic municipalities to countries around the world.”
Willis will become FiscalNote's managing director of municipal data strategy and operations. Her husband, Curate co-founder Dale Willis, will be vice president of data analytics for FiscalNote. Curate will remain a standalone product, Taralinda Willis said.
