As a new administration and a new Congress take their oaths this month, Quorum Analytics is positioned to offer its online legislative data analysis to a bigger slice of Capitol Hill than ever before. The Washington, D.C.-based startup has struck an exclusive reseller deal with Leidos through its Leidos Digital Solutions subsidiary, which runs the most widely used constituent relationship management platform on the Hill.
"This is a huge deal for us. It's an opportunity to significantly expand our presence on Capitol Hill," Quorum co-founder Alex Wirth told DC Inno in an interview. "Leidos is used by about 60 percent of congressional offices. Joining forces with them brings our data-driven services to Capitol Hill through their relationships."
Quorum, which uses data to find quantitative insight to qualitative policy questions, is already used by a number of elected officials at various levels of government. The platform keeps an eye on official and less formal discussion in D.C. and in statehouses to figure out what is happening with policy and what might influence it. Now, Leidos will be able to offer it as part of its package to elected officials at any level. Quorum did a series of sales training with Leidos ahead of time and will still handle the platform on the back end for those clients. The startup will also still handle direct sales to lobbyists, corporations and trade groups that use its services.
"The big opportunity here is that Leidos sells to governors who want to know what's happening at the state level and in congress," Wirth said. "Adding state packages to the federal level is a major differentiator. We can really bring innovation to this process."
Quorum had a very successful 2016, doubling in size even as it continues to hire more people. The utility of data analytics in terms of policy and legislation is getting more attention all the time, as evidenced by other local startups in the general space, like FiscalNote, Phone2Action and LawIQ. Still, this is a definite coup for Quorum, but one that Wirth described as more of a start than the goal itself.
"This is a perpetual relationship that will extend into the future," Wirth said. "And it will grow more [clients] for us as people get used to using Quorum and go from Capitol Hill to another organization and people become more familiar with our data driven approach. I see the partnership as adding more bandwidth and focus for us and opening up a lot of new relationships."
