By Anne Servidad, Altitude Accelerator Communications Intern

Enterprise information searches take up more time at work than performing actual tasks. People get lost through emails and spend hours tracking down colleagues who can help with a specific job. Most of the company’s information is scattered across digital spaces like Google Drive, DropBox, SharePoint, and even File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers, making it challenging to search for something specific.

In fact, a McKinsey report shows that employees spend 1.8 hours everyday and 9.3 hours per week on searching and gathering information alone. Only 39% of the time are individuals accomplishing role-specific tasks. This becomes extremely dangerous in larger enterprises because the longer an employee continues to look for something, the less productive they get. The lack of productivity costs the company time and money—both extremely valuable resources in the business world.

“Almost every company has difficulties collating and organizing information in such a way that an employee can find it quickly when they need it. The biggest issue is the sheer amount of time users have to spend searching for information that may or may not exist,” says Alexandre Pestov, founder of Meemim.

Meemim, a Toronto-based tech start-up and Altitude Accelerator Client, is focused on tackling this issue of organizing information and knowledge within companies with their unique software. It is a collaboration platform that organizes information so that anyone within the company can find what they need, when they need it. The software combines intranets, content management systems, and cloud storage that only brings up relevant search results with a highly visual user interface (UI).

Field tests show that the visual UI allows employees to sort through searches up to 10 times faster than compared to other systems. Meemim can save up to three hours a week per employee just on searching alone. The best part? The software needs to save only 10 minutes per employee to pay for itself.

Meemim’s unique interface is what stands out from the rest of the other systems. Its layout looks more like a consumer app than the usual “clunkiness” of an enterprise knowledge management.

“Consumer software has evolved hugely in the past 10-20 years, and enterprise software hasn’t really kept up. What we’re trying to do with our new user interface is to combine software polish and ease of use with enterprise software functionality. Meemim is a system that employees actually want to use,” explains Alec.

Meemim also integrates with other systems to link isolated spaces that companies use to store their information and cuts down on the inefficiency of searching. The platform collects it all into one information sharing hub and shortens the effort of documentation of up to 90%.

This new breed of software has allowed Meemim to raise $150,000 in seed funding from friends and family to expand on its features, such as external facing capabilities, improved user interface and mobile support, and new integrations with other software—including Slack.

Alec and his team are currently working on these enhancements and will deliver these changes by mid July 2016. Meemim has recently accepted in the Microsoft BizSpark program, which subsidizes their hosting. The program will enable Meemim to refocus their efforts on a growing customer base at a much faster pace and offer the platform in areas that could not be serviced before.

As a client, the Altitude Accelerator has been instrumental throughout their journey and their successes.

“The 360 Virtual Advisory Board pitch panel was extremely useful because the feedback was knowledgeable and constructive—it made us want to be better. We kept in touch with Kevin Smith who was on the board and helped us define the messaging and pointed us in the right direction when it came to thinking about how to describe the platform to others,” says Alec.

Curious about how Meemim? Click here to see how much time and money it can save you.