The Venture Codex

Participated · Equity · Sep 2022

Modern Democracy, founded in 2014 and based in Derry City, Northern Ireland, develops the award‑winning Modern Polling platform for elections. The platform brings an online electoral register to the polling station and provides a dashboard with real‑time statistics such as number of ballots and voter turnout. In May 2019 the company deployed Modern Polling in 143 polling stations in England during the UK local elections. Modern Democracy employs around 20 people and says it is expanding, creating new vacancies. The company recently completed a £750,000 funding round led by Crescent Capital, supported by Techstart and a number of Northern Ireland–based business angels, and it also cites local backing from InvestNI. The financing and local support are positioned to support continued deployment and team growth. Modern Democracy is a Northern Ireland–based SaaS provider of election software that digitalizes poll-station processes. Its cloud platform initially focused on front-end voter and polling staff check-in and has added real-time reporting and analytics for election-day performance. The platform gives returning officers visibility into voter turnout and the status of all poll stations to improve operational efficiency and the voter experience. Modern Democracy delivered poll-station innovation for UK Cabinet Office Voter ID pilots in 2018 and 2019 and has since been deployed by multiple local authorities, including Harrow, Watford and Swansea. The company aims to become the market leader in election-day modernization with an initial focus on polling stations. In August 2022 it secured £700,000 to facilitate further growth in the UK and international markets.