LeadSift is getting ready for a beta launch with $500,000 in venture capital investment. The financing includes $250,000 from the province, through Innovacorp, and $250,000 from New Brunswick-based East Valley Ventures Inc., and angel investors.

Businesses will soon be able to generate sales leads by mining social media with a new technology created by a Nova Scotia company.

LeadSift helps sales and marketing professionals identify and pursue business leads more efficiently. The proprietary technology analyzes chatter from popular social media streams like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs, and turns the data into accurate and targeted local leads for sales.

"Once again, we have leading-edge technology being built here in Nova Scotia," said Economic and Rural Development and Tourism Minister Percy Paris. "Start-ups like LeadSift are vital to our future prosperity. Investments in companies like this one protect and create jobs and open up opportunities in communities all across the province. Now is the time to build a competitive workforce and economy that positions Nova Scotians to make the most of the great opportunities to come."

"Millions of people are using social media every day to tell the world about their interests, preferences and opinions," said LeadSift CEO Tapajyoti Das. "We take the data stream in real-time and evaluate the true purchasing intent behind what people are saying."

Mr. Das founded LeadSift last year with fellow technology developers Sreejata Chatterjee, Hatem Nassrat and Daniel Allen. The team has signed up early adopters, and will launch a closed beta product early next month. A public launch is scheduled for early 2013.

"Social media continues to grow in prominence as a key marketing tool for businesses," said Thomas Rankin, Innovacorp's director of investment. "The LeadSift team brings a deep technical expertise to the problem of defining the return on investment for social interactive marketing initiatives. We're pleased to join East Valley Ventures in backing this world-class team of developers."

The investment comes at a time of significant momentum for LeadSift. Global cloud-computing giant Salesforce recently integrated LeadSift's product into its social marketing cloud offering. In November, the company will attend the prestigious Ad:Tech New York digital marketing event, where it is a finalist in the 2012 innovation awards and will have a chance to pitch to General Electric.

"We look forward to helping LeadSift realize its potential for success," said Jeff White, chief operating officer of East Valley Ventures. "And we're excited to see the increased participation and flow of ideas, people and capital from across all of Atlantic Canada."