Grotech Backs HiveLive

HiveLive Inc., a Boulder, Colo.-based provider of an enterprise social software platform, has raised $5.6 million in first-round funding. Grotech Capital Group led the round, with general partner Joe Zell taking a board seat.

PRESS RELEASE

HiveLive, Inc., a leading enterprise social software solution provider, today announced the closing of its first round of venture financing. Grotech Capital Group ( www.grotech.com ) led the $5.6 million round and was joined by current private investors. HiveLive's total funding to date is $7.8 million, which includes prior angel investments of $2.2 million. Grotech General Partner Joseph R. Zell will take a seat on HiveLive's board of directors, effective immediately.

According to John Kembel, co-founder and CEO of HiveLive, the timing of Grotech's investment aligns with the growth curve in business-focused social networking. “Companies are looking for ways to engage their customers in meaningful long-term relationships,” said Kembel. “Customer communities are rapidly becoming a vital part of the marketing mix. That's because connecting directly to your customers in real-time benefits nearly every dimension of marketing.” Customer communities nurture viral communication, deliver real-time feedback for brand development, allow peer-to-peer support, and form ever-stronger connections between a brand and those who believe in it.

HiveLive's solution is ideal for building customer communities tuned to the needs of today's marketers. The LiveConnect Community Platform is the first and only on-demand, enterprise social networking solution that utilizes a new Web 2.0 building block called a Hive. Hives can be easily configured by clicking not coding to support an infinite range of community activities such as communication, collaboration, discussion, media and file sharing, idea voting, and more. With Hives users can choose the people, create the type of information, and define the interaction shifting one-way, controlled messages into two-way collaborative conversations that are inclusive, open, and timely.

According to Grotech's Zell, HiveLive's technology is in the vanguard of today's rapidly evolving social software solutions. “The holy grail in today's competitive environment is achieving routine, customer-centric innovation,” said Zell. “HiveLive's community platform makes it easy for companies to bring customers and partners into the heart of the enterprise so they contribute to the success of the company. Now, businesses can involve customers in crowdsourcing ideas, generating product concepts, co-designing products, or any number of other activities.”

The infusion of new capital will allow HiveLive to pursue key objectives around growth and innovation. “This funding allows us to continue the momentum of our market launch in November, enabling us to scale our marketing and sales effort to meet the exponential growth we're seeing as companies embrace Marketing 2.0 technologies,” said Kembel. “It also supports our R&D focus, so we can increase our lead in enterprise social networking by continually expanding on our ability to deliver custom-fit customer communities.”

About HiveLive

HiveLive, Inc. is the first company to deliver an enterprise social software platform that integrates social networks with information networks for business-focused communities. The company's on-demand, Web-based platform is powered by a new Web 2.0 building block called a “Hive,” which can be configured to support a nearly infinite range of community activities such as concept brainstorms, product feedback, design reviews, voting centers, and more. The patent-pending technology uniquely enables companies to build communities of depth, and forge tighter bonds with their customers, partners, and employees to foster innovation, creativity, loyalty, and trust. HiveLive is privately held with headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. For more information, visit www.hivelive.com .

About Grotech Capital Group

Founded in 1984, Grotech Capital Group is one of the country's leading venture capital firms with a 24-year track record of helping to build successful companies. Led by an experienced team of professionals, Grotech seeks investments in communications technology, enterprise software, internet and digital media where the combination of its financial backing, domain expertise, industry relationships, and operating experience will accelerate growth. The partnership has approximately $1 billion under management and operates out of offices in Maryland and Virginia. To learn more, visit www.grotech.com .