Lexalytics, whose text-analytics software can measure, among other things, whether a digital document is full of praise or insults, did not get off to a superlative start back in 2003.
To begin with, its investors almost closed the company down. Lexalytics got started when the venture funders behind a Woburn, MA-based content management startup called LightSpeed Software decided to consolidate that company on the West Coast. “They were going to close the East Coast operation, so I basically convinced them to give it to me to avoid the shutdown costs,” says Jeff Catlin, a former LightSpeed general manager who, together with a LightSpeed engineer named Mike Marshall, salvaged the Woburn operation, moved it to Amherst, MA, and renamed it Lexalytics.