Magnet Gets Funding from Andreessen Horowitz for Enterprise Social Networking
The mission is clear: to take enterprise productivity to new heights.
That's the statement posted on the Magnet Systems blog after the startup's announcement that Andreessen Horowitz was the lead investor in a $12.6 million Series A round of funding for the company.
Magnet Systems says the future is bright for its enterprise social computing and social business applications, and funding from tech luminaries like Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz is proof.
“Together with our partners at Andreessen Horowitz, we are focused on helping enterprises tap into the immense potential of social networking and cloud computing,” Alfred Chuang, CEO and founder of Magnet Systems, wrote in a post on the company's blog. “We are creating a platform that will fundamentally change the arc of enterprise software.”
According to Chuang, social applications have become ubiquitous. From product recommendations to photo albums to online communities to advice, there are countless examples of social applications that have harnessed the power of shared information and common interests to improve quality of life.
Enterprise social computing lags behind consumer adoption of social applications, he said. Magnet Systems believes that there is resistance to enterprise social applications and many companies have not made a significant investment in them despite obvious use cases for customer service, HR, marketing, product development, recruiting and sales.
With new funding to move the company forward, Magnet Systems says it think it can break through that resistance.
“Whether companies like it or not, their people are working and communicating through blogs, online communities, personal relationships, pictures, referrals, videos, websites and countless other vehicles,” said Chuang. “Unfortunately, traditional enterprise applications aren't designed to capture, organize and prioritize the knowledge and connections that reside in these unstructured assets.”
He also said that an employee's network and ability to communicate and collaborate is the main focus of Magnet's Workplace Interaction Network (WIN) platform, a development platform that enables companies to build and deploy cloud-based, enterprise-ready social applications that leverage and extend the value of employee connections and relationships.
In describing how the funding would fuel Magnet Systems and its future in enterprise social computing, Chuang wrote, “I'm excited about the future and I'm proud of the tremendous team we've assembled at Magnet Systems. Together with our partners at Andreessen Horowitz, we are focused on helping enterprises tap into the immense potential of social networking and cloud computing. We are creating a platform that will fundamentally change the arc of enterprise software.”
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