Founded in 2000, SelectMinds' original mission was to develop an online system for alumni. Well, it hasn't had much traction. Besides, Facebook is the dominant player in the academic space.Well, SelectMinds is taking another tact; that is, the company is developing a system to allow for social networking in the corporate environment.
In fact, this week the firm obtained $5.5 million in venture capital. The investor is the venerable Bessemer Venture Partners.
Actually, SelectMinds has snagged some top customer references like JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), and Ernst & Young.
I had a chance to interview Robb Hecht, who is an expert on social networking and operates MEDIA 2.0. According to him:
"Select Minds' corporate social networking (CSN) service combines enterprise platform and social networking with the goal of positively affecting businesses' bottom lines. Utilizing Web 2.0 media tools and an online open-sourced mindset in helping organizations build connections among and between corporate constituencies (employees, alumni, retirees), the vision is to allow for innovation, increased productivity, and improved human resource needs.
"Given Bessemer has backed successful companies like LinkedIn, eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY) Skype and Revver, the future potential for corporate social networking as a future business tool is becoming increasingly clear."
Also, if you want to check out other venture capital fundings, click here.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.
"Given Bessemer has backed successful companies like LinkedIn, eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY) Skype and Revver, the future potential for corporate social networking as a future business tool is becoming increasingly clear."
Also, if you want to check out other venture capital fundings, click here.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-23-2007 @ 3:19PM
Diane Pardee said...
Hi Tom, I’m the chief marketing officer of SelectMinds and just came across your blog posting on the financing round. Thanks for covering us and corporate social networking. I’d like to clarify just one point in your post. SelectMinds was founded in 2000 to provide an early form of corporate social networks--which were corporate alumni networks—for former employees of organizations (we’ve never entered the academic alumni market). Today, SelectMinds is the market leader in corporate-sponsored alumni social networks, and we’ve learned a great deal about what makes these and other corporate social networks work over the past seven years. In the 2004-2005 timeframe we began providing true corporate social networks—those that link, enterprise wide, employees and, in many cases, also former employees, or alumni. These are secure networks that are exclusive to the constituencies identified by our client companies. Thanks again for your post, and we’d be happy to give you a demo and talk more fully about our client base of 60 global 2000 companies with, collectively, more than 1 million network members.