SALT LAKE CITY, UT--(Marketwire - October 13, 2010) - 7 Degrees, Inc., developer of the first Universal Social Graph, today announced that it has closed a $6.8 million Series B round led by Rho Ventures, vSpring Capital and Parkview Ventures. Patrick Wack, venture partner at Rho Ventures and most recently CEO of IntraLinks, will also join the 7 Degrees Board.
7 Degrees' first commercial product to leverage its Universal Social Graph Platform is PeopleMaps, an innovative social business tool. PeopleMaps combines personal and professional networks and contacts with the world's largest social graph of nearly a billion relationships to uncover how individuals and their networks are connected to any other person or company. 7 Degrees launched PeopleMaps in October 2009 and has achieved rapid market acceptance, signing several brand name customers and forging important partnerships with leading companies in the CRM and recruiting spaces.
PeopleMaps enables salespeople, recruiters, fundraisers, job seekers, and other professionals to harness their personal and professional relationships -- as well as those of their co-workers, board members, customers, and partners -- to get warm introductions to the people and companies they're trying to reach.
Using 7 Degrees' Universal Social Graph Platform, PeopleMaps discovers and prioritizes useful connections, allowing salespeople to close deals faster, discover the "key connectors" in their network, and prioritize their pipeline based on the strength of relationships so they can focus on the deals most likely to move forward quickly.
Recruiters and their organizations use PeopleMaps to find the best candidates in their collective personal and professional networks, to identify objective references for candidates, and to explore identified candidates' own social networks to find additional high-quality, potential hires.
"7 Degrees is solving real business problems by harnessing the power of relationships in an entirely new way," said Habib Kairouz, managing partner at Rho Ventures. "Tim and his team have deep experience in software and complex graph database technology, which brings a unique perspective to the social Web. Early adoption has exceeded our expectations and we see enormous opportunity for the 7 Degrees' Universal Social Graph Platform across B2B and consumer markets."
"Our mission is to make it significantly easier for business professionals to do their jobs better, faster and more effectively by leveraging their personal and professional relationships -- and the relationships of everyone in their organization. To accomplish this, we have built and are continuously enhancing a Universal Social Graph Platform that is searchable anytime, anywhere," said Timothy Sheehan, CEO and co-founder of 7 Degrees. "This round of funding is a validation of our vision and an exciting moment for our company."
About 7 Degrees and PeopleMaps
Built on 7 Degrees' comprehensive Universal Social Graph Platform, PeopleMaps is a powerful business application that analyzes the collective relationships of individuals, teams, and companies in order to show business professionals how they are connected to any other person or company. PeopleMaps is optimized for salespeople, recruiters, fundraisers, and job seekers, and is integrated into Salesforce.com, Oracle® CRM On Demand, and JobScience.
The PeopleMaps application is provided by 7 Degrees, Inc., which was founded in 2007 in Salt Lake City, Utah. 7 Degrees is venture-backed by Rho Ventures, vSpring Capital, and Parkview Ventures. For more information, please visit: http://www.7-Degrees.com.
About Rho Ventures
For nearly 30 years, Rho Ventures has been investing in leading edge, high growth companies at multiple stages of growth spanning early, venture-stage investments to later stage, growth equity transactions. Rho has participated in the growth of some of today's most innovative and successful companies, including Ciena, Capstone Turbine, Compaq Computer, EverdayHealth, Intralinks, iVillage, ReachLocal, Tacoda, Tripod, and Yantra. Rho Ventures is currently investing from Rho Ventures VI, a $510 million fund. The firm has offices in New York City, Palo Alto and Montreal, with investments across the globe. For more information, please visit www.rho.com.
Contact Information:
Contact Info:
LaunchSquad
Tessa Greenwood
(415) 625-8555
7degrees(at)launchsquad(dot)com