April 28, 2008
Austin Ventures Commits $50 Million to Create Social Enterprise Software and Services Company
Jeffrey Dachis, who led Razorfish during its reign as one of the original digital services firms, will be the chairman and chief executive officer of the new company, which will be based in Austin.
Today's announcement from Austin Ventures says that the newly formed company will "focus on creating an industry leading strategic consulting practice and an enterprise class Social Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) suite." In everyday terms, the firm will advise companies on how to implement technology like blogs and social networks to connect with customers and business partners. The software-as-a-service aspect would include Web applications that are secure enough and scalable enough for corporate use.
“I believe there is enormous opportunity in helping companies devise and implement a strategy to engage their constituents in a meaningful dialog throughout the enterprise," Dachis said. "As companies begin to see the benefits of utilizing “social” technology to engage their customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, and communities in an active and transparent dialog, they will need a trusted partner to help them navigate the opportunities, and an integrated set of scalable, robust, and secure enterprise class tools to implement them. We are here to provide both expertise and implementation.”
Dachis, who also serves as an advisor to local company Bazaarvoice and is on the board of directors of Austin's ArtHouse, plans to build the company both through new hires and through acquiring other companies.
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Frankly, this sounds familiar to some of the rhetoric heard during the last dotcom bubble. I am interested to see if they actually get it right this time or if this is just another bubble waiting to explode.
Austin Ventures has a pretty strong track record, actually. They were strong before the dot com bubble and afterwards. Part of that is picking good ideas to back. Part is also knowing when to hold 'em and fold 'em. And lastly, they know when to walk away from the table, and when to run.
Seth
Enterprise grade social networking is the next big thing. I've been implementing the basis for this at my company for the last nine months. It's really good stuff if you can start from scratch, but I can see where it would be a huge hassle for any company with a lot of processes already in place. There's stuff out there already, its more a matter of implementing the idea and not the product.