Manchester tech firm MirrorWeb has announced a £1 million investment weeks after securing a three-year contract with the Welsh Government.
The cloud-native web and social media archiving company has been valued at £7 million after securing the money from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, led by Maven Capital Partners.
Founded in 2012 by David Clee, Philip Clegg and Karl Stringer, MirrorWeb has developed a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for the archiving of web and social media assets for businesses in the private and public sectors.
In the last two years, the start-up has attracted major clients including UK Parliament, Welsh Government, BBC, The Bank of England, HM Treasury and House of Lords.
Co-founder and managing director David Clee said: “We have already missed vast quantities of digital content. We founded MirrorWeb in 2012 to allow users to create permanent, unalterable records of all online communications, be that a website or social media platform.
“We now capture information of commercial, cultural and historical value curating it in a user friendly format so it will never be lost and will be accessible to future generations.
“We’ve grown exponentially since that initial idea and this investment is another benchmark moment in our evolution that will support MirrorWeb’s ambition to lead the preservation of the world’s digital heritage.”
The start-up’s headcount has grown from five to 19 in the past three months and the capital investment will help fund a further 12 people to enhance product and market development by the end of 2018.
Last month, the firm announced it was chosen by the Welsh Government to digitally archive the nation’s online presence.
The company will preserve the Welsh Government’s web-published content in both English and Welsh, including llyw.cymru/gov.wales and all websites of historic and national significance.
MirrorWeb will also preserve a selection of key Welsh Government Twitter accounts, including @WelshGovernment, @LlywodraethCym and @FMWales.