The investment, combined with a further £100,000 from shareholders, will mean the company can extend its coverage to cover over 350,000 businesses in 100 town centres in the UK.
The Local Data Company, founded in 2003, currently holds information on over 80,000 retailers in 30 city centres.
Its data includes details of the occupier, address, business categorisation and features of companies such as shops, bars, restaurants, hotels and clubs. The company also possesses a unique image library of the various venues.
The company updates its information every six months, which it believes places them ahead of the competition.
Its data and images are useful to a wide range of organisations including retail researchers, estate agents, directory services, internet search engines and mapping and in-car navigation companies.
Clients include prestigious names such as Lastminute.com, Virgin.net, the Daily Telegraph and Infoserve.
The Capital Fund, a £50m venture finance group who invest in firms in Greater London, have added Mohammed Raja to the board as a non-executive director.
Barnaby Oswald, co-Founder and managing director of The Local Data Company, said that his company had responded to the changes in the market provoked by the IT revolution.
“Traditionally, a name, address and telephone number for a retail site were all that the market required.
“However, the advent of the internet and mobile applications means that sparse and infrequently updated data is no longer sufficient to meet the demands of the market.
“This was the first time that we had sought institutional funding and we know how difficult it can be to raise this ‘equity gap’ level of capital. However, we found The Capital Fund efficient and straightforward to deal with.”
© Crimson Business Ltd 2006
