Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) February 22, 2011
CapLinked, the LinkedIn-meets-SalesForce for private investing, announced today the completion of a $525,000 angel funding round, bringing total capital raised to over $900,000. CapLinked makes private investing easy, secure and social by providing a collaborative platform for entrepreneurs, private investors and advisors to find each other, build relationships, and transact business.
“There had to be a better way to connect great businesses with smart investors, so we created CapLinked, the LinkedIn-meets-Salesforce for private investing,” said Eric Jackson CEO of CapLinked and former PayPal Vice President. “CapLinked acts like LinkedIn for investors, entrepreneurs, and advisors to find each other and build relationships, and like SalesForce to help get deals done.”
“Start-ups are tremendous drivers of economic growth, yet the basic mechanics of investing in new companies can be difficult and inefficient, especially for first-time entrepreneurs or people outside venture capital centers,” said Peter Thiel. “CapLinked is providing—for the first time—an efficient online platform that connects entrepreneurs and investors, helps them build relationships, and streamlines the investment process.”
CapLinked is a secure and social online platform for targeting the estimated 20 million US and 100 million worldwide—investors, entrepreneurs, and advisors—who are involved in business with in private companies. CapLinked, which launched the service in October, currently has more than 2,100 companies and 1,000 investors on the platform, and $800 million in potential deals. Specifically, the CapLinked platform does the following:
- Empowers companies and investors to leverage their social graph to make connections, do business and build their online identities;
- Centralizes documents and sharing of information among investors, companies, and advisors to screen and identify potential deals and shepherd them through due diligence and closing process as well as handle post closing reporting to investors and stakeholders;
- Provides investors with a Schwab-like platform to track their portfolio of private companies in one location;
- Enables users to build a public profile featuring their portfolio investments, clients, or companies they manage;
- Allows sharing of confidential company or deal related information behind a secure “walled garden” environment.
CapLinked is brought to you by some of the same people who created and funded PayPal, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Peter Thiel, a technology entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist and co-founder of PayPal, Dave McClure founding partner of 500 Startups; Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies; Aman Verjee, CFO of Sonos; and David Anderson, managing partner of 7th Rig, led this $525,000 angel funding round. CapLinked also previously raised nearly $400,000 in a financing round from individuals in mid 2010.
Eric Jackson, CEO, and Christopher Grey, CFO and COO, co-founded CapLinked in January 2010. Eric was PayPal’s first Senior Director of U.S. Marketing and served as interim VP of Marketing after acquisition by eBay in 2002. He also authored The PayPal Wars. Chris was a managing partner and co-founder of private equity firms Crestridge Investments and Third Wave Partners as well as a managing director for Emigrant Bank, which is the largest privately owned bank in the country. He has been involved as a principal or banker in over $6 billion of private investments during his career.
For more information, visit http://www.caplinked.com/.
About CapLinked
Caplinked is LinkedIn-meets-Salesforce for private investment. When it comes to connecting companies, advisors, and investors, CapLinked performs like LinkedIn by tapping the power of the expanded social graph to make it easier, safer, and more efficient for people to find each other and build relationships. When it comes to making private investments, CapLinked functions like Salesforce to securely manage the process of capital raising, due diligence, closings, and company reporting.
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