KPMG Buys Stake in Trend Intelligence Firm Bottlenose

Management consulting giant KPMG has bought a 'substantial' equity stake in US-based trend intelligence specialist Bottlenose. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bottlenose, founded in 2010 by serial entrepreneur Nova Spivack and web technologist Dominiek ter Heide, uses big data cloud computing and analytics to track social networks and enterprise data sources, detecting and visualizing trends as they develop in real-time. Last year, the firm raised $3.6m in a Series A round of funding, and subsequently launched a big data trend spotting tool called the Nerve Center.

KPMG has bought the stake via its investment fund KPMG Capital, and has secured a license for its network of firms to use the Nerve Center to help clients with initiatives such as competitive intelligence, customer growth analytics, and cyber threat detection.

Mark Toon (pictured), CEO of KPMG Capital, comments: 'Our investment in Bottlenose is an important step in augmenting our member firms' ability to help address client issues across the enterprise. Providing clients access to a tool that can detect and monitor emerging developments as they occur can greatly enhance decision making.'

Web sites: www.kpmg.com and www.bottlenose.com .