Social productivity startup Spigit raised $10 million in Series B funding from private equity firm Warburg Pincus. This brings Spigit’s total funding up to $14 million. Spigit’s CEO and Founder, Paul Pluschkell says that the company will use the funds towards product development, and sales and marketing efforts.
Spigit’s products help businesses and teams contribute ideas, offer feedback and evaluate concepts to streamline idea generation and promote innovation. Spigit recently launched integration with Microsoft SharePoint, which includes a dashboard that provides real-time updates on activity, hot topics and employee contributions within a business, an advanced analytics engine that identifies the best ideas among all contributions and a customizable workflow systems to manage ideation. The software also evaluates employees and offers an incentive and rewards program.
Spigit’s software has some big name clients IBM, Pfizer, Lloyds Banking Group, Walmart, MedPlus, Southwest Airlines and Choice Hotels International. The startup faces competition from Jive and BrightIdea.
Love the name Spigit (sarcasm).
Sounds like something to do with bathroom, toilet or plumbing.
Isn’t this practically the same thing Google Wave does, but for free?
It’s not the same as G Wave – i don’t think Wave has the ideagora concept.
Nigel – you’re right. Google Wave is more a protocol on which advanced applications may be built in the future. It itself does not do the specific functions required for innovation management, or other enterprise apps. The closest function it does out-of-the-box is email.
Not surprising given how stoked its customers are about Spigit!
As an ex-customer, I remember this stuff from my previous company. It is a great concept that no one uses. The problem is that only 0.01% of the people (geeks and statistics majors) understand it. This is a good academic exercise for people who have a lot of time on their hand.
For the rest of us, UserVoice is a great solution.
Neil -
You couldn’t be more wrong. Not sure which company you were with, happy to chat more. Plenty of companies are getting results with Spigit – you think Warburg Pincus invests if they weren’t?
Some use cases of Spigit’s customers:
http://www.spig...ners/index.html
Hutch
I think my association was with #6 on your list. Like I said, geeks like your tool. Its just a bit disconnected from reality for the sub 200 IQ category. I am sure it will be well received in the academically minded innovation groups.
As for Warburg Pincus, for every winner they have invested in 15 losers. I do wish you emerge on the right side of the spectrum there.
This space is hot and getting hotter – with plenty of company and competition. There is certainly room for a handful of companies to do well.
Good luck.