The investment, the size of which is undisclosed, will by used to scale business operations, Zabin said, with several strategic hires and marketing and brand-building activities lined up for the first half of the year.

Gleanster launched in beta in November with a series of benchmark reports available to download from its website, covering social media marketing, online customer communities, social media monitoring and customer feedback management.

Zabin said: “The beta test [period] helped us refine the features and functionality of our website and gain a deeper understanding of how our community members wish to interact with our benchmark research. We’ll continue to collect user feedback even as we build out the content library and begin execution of the full pilot launch.”