Imaginatik raises $2.6M to find employees' good ideas

Imaginatik, which offers technology to help companies poll their employees for cost-saving ideas and then select the best ones, says it has raised another $2.6 million to pursue plans for growth.

There are plenty of other tools that let you gather ideas from customers and employees (one of the more high-profile products comes from Salesforce.com, whose IdeaExchange was adapted for use on Barack Obama’s Change.gov web site). But Imaginatik touts its research as one of the most effective methods for “crowdsourcing.” Its Idea Central product breaks the process down into five key steps: Challenging employees, capturing ideas, sharing and developing ideas, selecting and exploiting ideas, and measuring success.

The company has offices in London and Boston, and says its clients include Chubb, Cargill, Merck, Boeing and Xerox. Last week, Imaginatik announced a new product called ChemBioConnect, which can help hundreds or even thousands scientists work together. (It was created through a partnership between Imaginatik, biotech and chemistry software maker CambridgeSoft, and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.)

The new funding comes from new and existing investors; I’ve asked Imaginatik for more details and will update as soon as I hear back. The company is traded publicly on the London Stock Exchange.

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