VCIR - HiveLive

HiveLive is an enterprise social software company. They provide enabling technology to allow companies and I suspect brands to build interaction around their online properties. John Kembel is the founder and CEO. They have raised $2.2M in angel financing to date, but announced they just closed a $5.6M round lead by GrowTech.

Why is this important? HiveLive would say that community is next frontier for CRM. I define this as means to create a dialog between themselves and customers. This includes Lead Gen, Loyalty Retention, Market Intelligence and Customer Support. Among other things, HiveLive has recognized that businesses with partners or supply chain interaction are likely fruitful ground for their solution. Their customers come to them to avoid trying to integrate blogs, forums, etc.

Here is what I think. First, I just barely understand this space. I understand connecting customers and companies. The few examples I have seen such as the social bolt-on's to USAToday have been forced to me. What I like about the HiveLive story is that they are looking at the idea fresh. Rather than bolting blogs, forums, etc together they are trying to create an "environment". I think this is unique – and the data analytics they can generate is likely very valuable if they capture a user experience that works for their customers (and their customers). John and team are clearly passionate about the space and this is probably the best reason to invest.