Idea Drop helps organisations generate and capture new ideas

In spite of my aversion to the word “ideation,” I can’t argue against software designed to help an organisation solicit ideas from its people. The best ideas can — and often do — come from anyone, regardless of job title or hierarchy. Enter Idea Drop, a London-headquartered startup that offers what it calls an “idea management” platform.

Consisting of cloud-based software and a mobile app, Idea Drop is designed to help organisations and companies generate and capture new ideas. In addition, it provides features to help decide which of those ideas get put into action.

“For most businesses and organisations, the process of gathering, curating and implementing new ideas is generally costly and time consuming,” says Idea Drop co-founder Owen Hunnam.

“Regardless of size or sector, ideation processes typically happen from the top down, with those highest paid and most senior usually sharing, validating and actioning the most ideas. Where there are existing ideation initiatives in place, such as intranets, suggestion boxes or annual staff surveys, these tend to be siloed and prevent collaborative, transparent and bottom-up innovation unfolding”.

Along with a modern UX and native iOS and Android apps — two things that Hunman says gives Idea Drop the edge over legacy competitors — the software is underpinned by a ranking algorithm that scores every idea in real-time based on “social signals and interactions”.

The idea is to enable the most promising ideas to automatically bubble to the surface for the attention of managers and decision-makers within an organisation.

“Out-of-the-box social tools also make it easy for colleagues to collaborate, enrich and validate ideas,” adds Hunnam. “Other key features include individual innovation scores, challenges, reports, search, analytics and idea cloaking”.

Idea Drop is also disclosing new funding. The startup has raised £1 million from 33 new investors, in addition to all previous backers participating. Also notable is that the company’s 17 person-strong engineering ‘partner’ is based in Kerala, India, and has also invested. Party round, anyone?