Sqoop raises money from investors

Sqoop, a site that helps business journalists find stories in public documents, has raised $176,000 in funding, writes John Cook of GeekWire.

Cook writes, “Sqoop just raised a small round of cash to help push the data journalism startup forward, including money from the Seattle Angel Conference and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups. Hankes, the former director of public relations at Bing and ex-vice president of communications at RealNetworks, first met 500 Startups at a workshop they hosted at Galvanize in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood.

“Total investment in Sqoop’s most recent round was $176,000, with the company last year pulling in $100,000 from Seattle angel investor Gary Rubens.

“As part of the investment from 500 Startups, Hankes is participating in a four-month accelerator program in Mountain View, Calif. operated by the investment firm.

“‘The emphasis of the program is to take companies with strong growth and help them accelerate that growth,’ said Hankes. ‘For the past eight months, Sqoop has been growing its base of journalists 30% month over month, and we hope to accelerate that by using the funds to build more data journalism tools.’

“At this point, Sqoop is focusing on adoption rather than revenue, with Hankes saying they have a big opportunity to roll out new tools that help journalists conduct research more efficiently. Next up, tools to search trademarks and documents at the FCC and FDA, as well as new filtering tools which would allow journalists to search by geography or specific industry types.”

Read more here.