SMI Aware is an open-source intelligence (OSINT) data collection firm specializing in social media evidence discovery and preservation for the legal industry. Founded 2011. $2.1M funding. ~23 employees, 3,528 LinkedIn followers, EV=260. Core service: ethical, defensible collection and preservation of social media and web-based evidence across 500+ platforms using proprietary technology and certified analysts. Products: Social Media Deep Report (comprehensive social media evidence reports), SMI Aware Export (defensible data preservation). Key capability: source code-level preservation of social media evidence — blog argues ‘screenshots fail as evidence’ and emphasizes that defensible collection requires capturing underlying data, not just visual screenshots. Relativity integration confirmed by Relativity’s own blog: ‘new integration with SMI Aware and Relativity allows users to quickly access social media and web intelligence.’ Practice areas: insurance fraud/SIU (heavily targeted), PI defense, workers’ compensation, class actions, employment law. Blog: ‘Insurance companies have started heavily incorporating social media research into fraud detection departments.’ Listed on Legaltech Hub and SoftwareSuggest. One Reddit mention in r/ediscovery — adversarial context (‘Their legal goons paid SMI Aware to take screenshots’). No G2/Capterra reviews. Pricing not published. Competitors: Page Vault (web capture), X1 Social Discovery, Hanzo (social media archiving), ShadowDragon (law enforcement OSINT). Key differentiator: combines proprietary technology with certified human analysts for defensible collection — positions against fully automated tools that ‘often miss the mark for accuracy.’ Insurance/litigation-focused rather than law enforcement or corporate compliance.
Company Info
- Founded: 2011
- Team size: 11-50 employees
- Funding: $2.1M
- HQ: United States
- Sector: Litigation
What We Haven’t Verified
This page was assembled from publicly available information. Feature claims and workflow mappings are based on what the vendor and third-party listings publish — not hands-on testing or practitioner feedback.
Workflows
Based on practitioner evidence, Smi Aware is used in these workflows:
What practitioners struggle with
Real frustrations from legal professionals — the problems Smi Aware addresses (or should address). Sourced from practitioner reviews, Reddit threads, and case studies.
Managing 200+ open PI cases with medical records, deadlines, and lien tracking in spreadsheets — one missed statute of limitations and the firm faces malpractice
Insurance SIU investigator suspects a workers' comp claimant is exaggerating their injury but needs social media evidence that's legally defensible — screenshots can be challenged as altered, posts get deleted, and the investigator isn't sure what collection methods will hold up in court
Where it fits in your workflow
Before Smi Aware
Litigation team needs social media evidence for case → attorney identifies opposing party's social media accounts → needs defensible, court-admissible collection of posts, photos, videos, metadata before content is deleted or altered → engages SMI Aware for collection.
After Smi Aware
After collection completed → SMI Aware Deep Report delivered → evidence loaded into Relativity or eDiscovery platform → attorney uses social media evidence in depositions, motions, trial → metadata and source code establish authenticity and chain of custody.
Integrations & hand-offs
SMI Aware (evidence collection) → Relativity/eDiscovery platforms (evidence storage and review); → litigation teams (case strategy from social media findings); → expert witnesses (authentication testimony if challenged). Insurance SIU teams use reports directly for claims decisions.
Also used by similar teams
Community Data
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