When bad things happen – it can lead to the creation of a new company. North Carolina State University professor Rosanna Garcia and her family had good experiences with house-sharing networks dating back to 1989, so she signed on with Airbnb when it started. Unfortunately, when Garcia rented her vacation home to teenager Brandyn for his 19th birthday party, it resulted in $18,000 in damages. Even though Airbnb’s insurance covered the damages, it’s not the kind of hassle anyone needs.

Garcia, who co-founded the startup Vijilent to rate online sharing services and help prevent others from having similar problems, relates the story on the Vijilent blog (http://www.vijilent.com/trust-in-the-sharing-economy/).

Even though Garcia had done some background research before renting to Brandyn, noting that he was a resident of her home town, she admits “I let my guard down.” After a week of overseeing repairs to the home, she thought, “My expertise is in predictive analytics. Surely I could have predicted this turn of events,” she wrote in her blog post about starting the company.

She also realized she isn’t alone in facing the problem. “Everyone has a story or knows someone who’s been burned online,” Garcia said in a statement. “Our goal is to use the many resources available to help better inform these social transactions.”

Detecting good or bad intentions

One of the first things she did prior to starting the company was call her friend and colleague Dr. Kwong Chan, data analytics specialist currently at Boston’s Northeastern University. “She knew I was working in the area of sentiment analysis and online information quality, so after that incident happened, she asked, ‘What are you working on that’s relevant to this?’ It turned out to be quite a lot,” Chan tells WRAL TechWire.

A core element of sentiment analysis, Chan explains, is detecting good or bad intentions by looking at the style, word use and other aspects of text.

Chan and Garcia founded Vijilent together and shortly after, joined the American Underground’s three-month Groundwork Labs program in Durham.

By harnessing the power of predictive analytics, as well as the public data accessible from people’s digital footprint, Vijilent establishes a “V-Score,” a rating system on a scale of 1-100 based on the veracity, verifiability, virtue and v-fit of the individuals web presence.

Platform could generate multiple products

The higher the number, the more likely the individual is suitable. Much like a credit score, the “V-Score” is established through considering location data, online profile history and consistency, public records, personality analysis and the proprietary “V-Fit” which takes into account the user’s own characteristics.

Chan says the meaning of a good score would vary depending upon the sharing service being rated and individual requirements. “Things are different depending upon the sharing economy context,” he says. “Something that applies to ride sharing may not apply to booking room. The V-fit score is intended to raise awareness of potential risks.”

While some competing rating services exist, they are generally opt-in, where you have to create your own profile. “We use purely publically available information? Chan says. “You can always opt-out and choose not to be in our system, but you don’t need to opt-in.”

Chan notes that the company views Vijilent as a platform that can result in a variety of products that help people make better informed decisions. Its first product, for instance, due for release July 15, is a smartphone app to help college students chose compatible roommates. Chan says it is being developed for both iPhone and Android.

Crowdfunding via the Women Startup Challenge

On the business side, Chan says, they would like to form partnerships with players in the sharing economy. “We hope to help companies better match people with one another using our core technology. We want to be the trust standard for the sharing economy.”

Vijilent has raised $5,460 to date, 36 percent of its $15,000 goal, via the crowdrise Women Startup Challenge (https://www.crowdrise.com/vijilent-womenstartup2015/fundraiser/rosannagarcia). Chan says that as a woman-led business, encouraging more women to enter technology fields is a strong interest of Vijilent’s.

As in most crowdfunding campaigns, Vijilent offers an array of rewards for contributions, including some unusual ones, such as a personal guide at the Olympics provided by a Vijilent intern from Brazil. The crowdrise campaign ends today (Friday, May 29th) shortly before 2 p.m.

A panel of judges from the investor community will review the top 25 fund-raisers in the crowdrise Women Startup Challenge. The judges will then choose the 10 best startups who will receive the grand prizes of attending General Assembly in Washington DC to pitch their startup in person in front of a panel of investors with a chance to win up to another $50,000.

Vijilent has also received some interest from angel investors in the Triangle area and from New England, Chan says.