A public relations-tracking startup called TrendKite has raised $3.2 million

TrendKite, a startup promising to help brands and agencies measure the effectiveness of their PR efforts, has raised $3.2 million in Series A funding. It’s also announcing that it has a new CEO — Erik Huddleston, former CTO and executive vice president of product at social monitoring company Dachis Group. Huddleston told me that when Dachis Group was acquired by Sprinklr in February, he was “fully committed” to staying on-board. However, he was already an adviser with TrendKite, and shortly after the acquisition was announced, the startup’s founders took him to dinner and suggested that he join as CEO. It was, in his words, “a bit of an ambush.” And apparently it worked. Those founders will remain involved in the company — former CEO Matt Allison is now chief product officer, while his co-founders AJ Bruno and Patrick Brannen continue to serve as president and CTO, respectively.