On Tuesday, Washington D.C.-based FiscalNote made tech headlines by closing a $10 million Series B funding round led by the prominent Chinese social network, Renren. DC Inno spoke with FiscalNote CEO Tim Hwang about the company’s largest funding round to date and his big plans for an ambitious 2015. According to the 22-year old CEO, the rising AI-powered legislative analytics and aggregation startup will be doubling its workforce with talent-driven technical staff while bolstering its main operations in Washington, D.C, and in New York.
Regarding the $10 million investment, “to an extent we [FiscalNote] didn’t really need the capital. It was an opportunity that popped up and we didn't want to turn away. We decided to take advantage of the massive growth we’ve been seeing and the opportunity presented to us … we’ve had this one under the rug since about the beginning of this year but it was something we needed to properly analyze and set ourselves up for.”
Hwang declined to comment on FiscalNote's valuation, or exact revenue figures, but said the startup is “currently experiencing a 20-35 percent growth of revenue per month.” FiscalNote will use the new funding to expand internationally, namely to London, Singapore and Boston. Hwang also confirmed that the Washington, D.C., office will continue as its official headquarters.
Hwang told DC Inno, “we [FiscalNote] anticipate to aggressively hire top talent than can both develop and release new products, taking the right step towards new markets with our main focus always being the support of our customers — both domestically and internationally.” The majority of the hiring referenced will pertain primarily to the D.C. and New York offices.
Hwang graduated from Princeton in three years, and founded FiscalNote with friends Jonathan Chen, FiscalNote’s CTO, and CSO Gerald Yao. “One of the biggest things that I think has made us [FiscalNote] successful is that on the hiring side we have a strict protocol. We set a high bar for ourselves by trying to build the best team in the world. Not to be cliche, but if you’re going to challenge the big guys you need the best team,” Hwang said.
Named as one of CNN’s top 10 startups of 2014 after being founded only 18 months prior, FiscalNote is known for its powerful legislative searching, tracking and forecasting product, Prophecy. Several notable clients currently rely on FiscalNote’s technology, including: JP Morgan Chase, VMWare and Uber. Accompanying the company’s Tuesday announcement, it will introduce a new regulatory product, Sonar, later this year.
