The Venture Codex

Led · Equity · May 2019

CitizenLab is a Brussels-based civic engagement platform that enables two-way communication between cities and citizens through participatory tools. The platform lets residents submit and discuss ideas, vote on budgets, and start initiatives to shape the political agenda. Since launching in 2015, CitizenLab has been used by over 100 cities and municipalities and is active in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the U.K., Denmark and Chile. The company is developing AI and plans to invest in Natural Language Processing to turn unstructured citizen input into actionable insights. It plans to use recent funding to build new product modules that inform citizens about local policy and to accelerate international expansion. The platform currently employs around 15 people and aims to double its team while targeting implementation in up to 300 cities by next year.