Intercom, a startup promising to help online businesses communicate with their customers in a more personalized way, has raised a $6 million Series A.

I wrote about the company last month when Facebook’s Paul Adams joined it as its new head of product design. At the time, Adams told me that Intercom’s work matches his own belief that businesses’ interactions with customers have to become more personal and relationship-based.

CEO Eoghan McCabe offered a similar vision this week. “Loyalty is magic,” he argued, recalling that the personal service he received at a friend’s chain of coffee shops meant that he’d walk past competing shops and invite friends to this one.

“It became kind of clear to me that on the web, you don’t really have those relationships,” he said, aside from “a few little outliers like Zappos who have invested heavily in great service.”

In order to enable those kinds of relationships, McCabe said Intercom has a couple of key features. For one thing, he said that businesses usually have to “stitch together” products to run an online help desk, email marketing, customer relationship management, and marketing automation. That’s a flawed approach, because they’re all trying to accomplish the same broad goal — “to provide simple, human service.” So Intercom brings all of that functionality together in one place.

Plus, McCabe said that by adding just a few lines of JavaScript to their site, businesses get a natural way to interact with their customers, not just by sending them marketing emails (which often come in at inconvenient times and are ignored), but also at the moment of greatest relevance — “when they’re inside your product.”

That all sounds appealing, but are businesses really going to become more personal and less spammy just because they have better tools?

“The thing is, no business inherently wants to be spammy,” McCabe said. “It’s shit for business. Even assholes know it’s a dumb thing to do.”

The problem, he said, is that there’s “so much friction in the process that you can’t afford to be very targeted and personal.” Eliminate that friction and businesses can do a better job at this stuff. That’s also why McCabe said most of the new funding will go towards improving the product, while also hiring more people to expand Intercom’s own service team.

The Series A comes from The Social+Capital Partnership, the firm founded by former Facebook vice president Chamath Palihapitiya, with participation from Freestyle Capital and David Sacks, founder and CEO of Yammer. Intercom previously raised $1 million from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, 500 Startups, and others.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The technology industry’s newest high-powered political lobby, FWD.us, is unraveling just a month after it launched, as two of its biggest partners, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Yammer’s David Sacks, leave the organization. Begun with a reported $20 million of Mark Zuckerberg’s own money, and rare op-ed by the politically shy Facebook founder, FWD.us has faced a torrent of criticism over funding advertisements that praise Republicans who support the controversial Keystone pipeline (below).

Environmental groups were up in arms and circulated a boycott of FWD.us that had, ironically, had more supporters than FWD.us’s call to action. The Sierra Club, Progressives United and MoveOn.org were among a littany of progressive groups that are now boycotting Facebook advertisements.  “Immigration reform – fine. Oil expansion and pipelines? NOT fine. Where’s the transparency here, rich dudes? Or does FWD actually stand for Fine With Drilling?,” wrote one angry commenter on the FWD.us Facebook page.

Elon Musk, as founder of Tesla Motors, prides himself on a sterling environmental record, so it’s easy to see why he couldn’t tolerate being associated with a group indirectly funding pro-Keystone pipeline ads. But, David Sacks doesn’t have as much to lose publically as Musk, which means that Musk is likely hooking more high-level partners with his departure.

Nor is this the group’s first PR disaster. Even before the group began, FWD.us director and Zuckerberg’s old Harvard roommate, Joe Green, had to issue a statement of regret for a leaked perspectus. “Given the status of our funders and quality of our team, we will drive national and local narratives to properly frame our agenda,” read the brash strategy note.

As we’ve written about before, FWD.us has kept a tight lid on their funding and tactics. We do know that FWD.us splits its organization into Democratic and Republican teams, offering quid pro quo cash in exchange for support of its key initiative — immigration. This kind of back-door compromising may work in D.C., but it’s evidently not as well tolerated in the Valley.

In my own off-the-record conversations with supporters, no one is happy with FWD.us right now.

It’s going to become a political landmine to stay on board, let alone join the group. FWD.us is unraveling, and we predict it won’t be around much longer unless it becomes a lot more transparent and ditches the D.C. tactics. Stay tuned for more.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

GrabCAD, which offers an online community and cloud-based collaboration tools for those involved in designing and building physical products, has raised an $8.15 million series B round led by Charles River Ventures, with participation from new investor David Sacks (co-founder of Yammer and former chief operating officer of PayPal), and existing investors Atlas Venture, NextView Ventures, and Matrix Partners.

This, says the company, brings GrabCAD’s total funding to around $14 million, having previously disclosed a $1.1m seed round, followed by a $4m Series A.

Meanwhile, GrabCAD says it will use the new capital to accelerate the company’s growth as it builds new collaborative tools to improve the design and communication processes in the “creation of physical products”.

Or another way to think of the company’s mission is to become the ‘GitHub for mechanical engineers‘. It currently offers an online community and marketplace for CAD engineers, along with collaborative tools to share designs and 3D models as a ‘work in progress’ with other engineers, along with clients, customers and other stakeholders in the design process.

The idea is to make it easier for mechanical engineers to collaborate, both amongst themselves by sharing models in an ‘open source’ way and thus reducing duplication, but also with clients by making it infinitely quicker to get feedback.

This pits it against a number of competitors, including Sunglass, a company that made its private beta debut back at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, and publicly launched this October.

In June, we reported that GrabCAD (headquartered in Boston, with development offices in Estonia) had reached a major milestone, growing its online community to 250,000, up from 70,000 in January, a stat that it claimed was equivalent to 10% of the world’s mechanical engineers based on published figures of CAD software ‘seats’ or user licences. That was some fuzzy logic, but as I noted at the time, certainly suggests that the company has decent traction. And it would seem, following today’s new funding round, investors have taken notice too.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I’ve become pretty familiar with the sinking feeling that kicks in when I realize I’m going to be late, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. San Francisco startup Twist set out to make those ensuing “Oh man, so sorry, I’m running a little behind” exchanges obsolete when it launched its arrival signaling iOS app in July, and it turns out the company has been working on a few things behind the scenes.

Case in point: the Twist team has just pushed out an iOS 6-friendly update for the app, and announced that Yammer CEO David Sacks has joined the Twist advisory board.

Before we dive into that, here’s a quick refresher in case you haven’t yet heard of Twist. The iOS app (an Android version is currently in the works) allows its users to create journeys called “Twists,” and broadcast their estimated time of arrival to the people they’re supposed to meet. Rather than leaving users to guess how long it’ll take them to arrive, Twist uses its own homebrew algorithm to create an estimated wait time based in part on your mode of transport — after all, a bus ride will take much longer than a jaunt in your car. From there, the app can share your location to those pre-selected people in real-time, doing away with the need to send harried text messages if you get stuck in even more traffic.

Sacks’ addition to the company’s advisory board has already seems to have yielded some concrete benefits — Twist representatives noted in a release that Sacks has had a hand in (among other things) “guiding product strategy” and international expansion. The newly-updated iOS 6 app packs a few new additions like a more intuitive UI that Sacks apparently played an “instrumental role” in crafting, as well as support for Apple Maps and the ability to create Twists from entries in your calendar.

It should come as no surprise then that Twist is making good on its promise to service those abroad. Since its launch nearly four months ago, the service was only available to folks here in the U.S., but this latest update also adds support for the perennially-tardy in Canada, the U.K., and Australia. Twist’s overseas push isn’t likely to end there though — CEO Bill Lee notes that the company has “seen interest from foreign governments that see Twist as a solution to massive problem.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Online communication tools for business are many, but as someone who has used a fair number of them in his life, I can tell you there’s still room for improvement. That’s what Unison hopes to provide, with its mobile, web and desktop based tool that combines elements of standards like Campfire and Yammer with principles of real-world interaction to hopefully making working with a distributed team feel less distributed.

“We’re trying to combine this concept of a physical space where you can see who is where, along with the idea of a social network where you can see a stream of stuff,” Unison founder Rurik Bradbury explained in an interview. The new version of the Unison web app, introduced this week, is intended to “visualize the physical spaces where people are working.”

Unison is intended to strike a balance, by providing the kind of serendipitous experience that comes from actually running into people in the halls of an office, but also without the excess noise and distraction that Bradbury claims is endemic to the first generation of social enterprise tools.

In practice, that ends up feeling quite familiar to approaches taken by others like Socialcast, Yammer and Convo, but the added effort to make things feel like an analogue to the physical world does seem to do a better job of keeping elements separate from one another. But keeping things distinct isn’t always great in an enterprise workflow, since you could miss something important if it’s in a room where you don’t normally visit.

Still, as of this latest version users can tag others in order to push a message from any room to that person’s main feed, meaning they won’t miss out on essential information. The distinction could keep the main feed clear, where it can become cluttered in other products by default when users don’t know where to find settings to turn off extraneous feeds and information.

Bradbury thinks that Unison is at the beginning of a very long-term play, that sees the company taking advantage of what he says is just the beginning of enterprise adoption of tools like these. It’s definitely true that while some of us may be tired of trying platform after platform with relatively similar purposes and implementations, finding the right recipe for mass appeal hasn’t happened yet, and Unison represents another try at getting it right.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

One of the most rational voices in the Valley, David Sacks has hit many of the commonly agreed upon entrepreneurial “milestones,” and he’s only 40. Sacks is part of a mafia (PayPal), he’s had a pivot (MyGeni) and he’s won a TechCrunch startup competition, back when it was TechCrunch 50.

He’s also successfully built an enterprise product with Yammer and then sold it to Microsoft for over a billion dollars. He’s even dabbled in Hollywood. And now he’s arguing that there’s nothing left to do, debatably because he’s done it all (Okay, so maybe he hasn’t had an IPO besides PayPal, who’s counting really?).

No seriously, what’s next for David Sacks, other than a stint in politics? TechCrunch Disrupt that’s what. Sacks will be taking the stage with the other rockstars at what promises to be the Coachella of tech conferences, to give us his obviously keen observations of the future of the Valley, technology and innovation.

Folks, we are merely two weeks away from one of the most badass tech conferences of the year. Get your tickets here while you still can!

And, as I now constantly write at the end of these things, if you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here. Students can also come and be a part of Disrupt SF, for cheaper obviously.

YOLO.

David Sacks
Founder & CEO, Yammer, Inc.

David O. Sacks is the Founder and CEO of Yammer, Inc. Sacks was previously the COO of PayPal until its acquisition by eBay. Subsequently, he founded Geni.com, a family tree building and networking website. He also produced and financed the hit movie Thank You For Smoking. David recently sold Yammer to Microsoft for $1.2 billion.

David holds a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I was recently at on offsite with my fellow partners at Charles River Ventures, and the idea came up that I should find someone who could be the next George Zachary. I’ve done well in my 17-year career as a venture capitalist, returning more than $1 billion of investor gains through successes like Yammer, Millennial Media, Shutterfly and Twitter. My partners want to keep that going. I am 46 now, and I get 50 pitches a day, half of those referred by people I know. I am looking for leverage to meet more of these companies and remain involved in my current companies, friends, and family. My partners see the value in my intuition-based approach to investing and asked me to think about how I can leverage my time and value by finding a great apprentice.

I am big on a particular type of entrepreneur. I don’t look too hard at business plans and the numbers. I am not necessarily impressed by the guy who topped out at Stanford or dazzled at Google. I am specifically looking for founders who are extremely smart and want to change the world for the better by building new companies, founders who are deeply passionate and completely obsessive about what they want to do. A great example is the smart and relentless David Sacks, the founder of Yammer, which was just recently acquired by Microsoft. My investing successes track closely with those qualities. Once I’m in, my job is to keep the founder fired up and safe from naysayers.

I need to find someone who sees investing the same way I do.

Get a recruiter, my partners say. Maybe I will. But can you imagine explaining this to a recruiter? I’ve decided to try something else first. With the help of TechCrunch, I am going to put out a call for an apprentice. If find one, I will hire that person to work with me at Charles River Ventures as my associate. If the apprentice does well, they will become a partner – the new and hopefully improved George Zachary.

How will I find that apprentice? The entry form is below this post. All I want is…

•           a link to your LinkedIn profile

•           a 60-second video of you explaining why you would be a great venture capitalist

•           a 300-word note retelling the most formative experience in your life

My friends at TechCrunch and Charles River Ventures will look those over, and we will select seven people to appear on stage with me for a live interview at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Sept. 11 at 6 p.m. I will conduct brief interviews with each person before a live audience, and I will ask three of those seven to join me for a subsequent, lengthier interview. One may end up my apprentice. Or not. This is hard.

But if you want to give it a try, look below to enter. One detail: if we pick you and you are not already attending the show, TechCrunch and I will get you a ticket.

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Article courtesy of TechCrunch

There is a pretty fascinating debate happening right now on David Sacks’ Facebook page. Exactly one month after the Yammer sale to Microsoft closed, Sacks is feeling pretty bearish about the startup ecosystem.

“I think Silicon Valley as we know it may be coming to an end …,” Sacks posts, arguing mainly that because major Internet companies (like um, Microsoft?) are on the prowl for innovative ideas, it’s too risky and costly for entrepreneurs to attempt to create successful new companies.

“How many [viable] ideas like that are left?” Sacks, who was a TechCrunch50 winner, asks?

“An infinite number — human creativity is limitless,” responds the infinitely more positive Marc Andreessen, “Which doesn’t make it easy, but does mean the opportunity is unending.”

Andreessen then refutes Sacks’ argument point by point, basically asserting that larger companies are in many cases more ill-equipped than startups to execute on novel and world-changing ideas (Apple Ping anyone?), as they care more about stability than change.

Andreessen, who watched his own Netscape get crushed by Microsoft in the mid-nineties 1990s (and then lived to sell Skype to the beast of Redmond as A16z’s first exit) mind you, wins this round, by sheer enthusiasm.

He goes on a comment tear, and “successfully bludgeon[s] his audience into submission” three times! Sorry Sacks, but if Marc can muster up some hope, then so can you.

Also, I for one am a huge fan of Yammer investor George Zachary’s mystical response, “As long as the universe keeps changing, there is opportunity.” And a time to every purpose, under heaven.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Like so many things that go on to have big success, Yammer, the enterprise social networking company that was just officially acquired by Microsoft for a cool $1.2 billion, had an inauspicious start.

At first, actually, Yammer was not intended to be a company at all. It was built as an internal feature within a genealogy startup called Geni, to let Geni employees communicate with each other about work. Soon, though, Geni co-founder David Sacks realized that this tool they’d built could be very useful for others. And voilà, Yammer was spun out and born as its own business, with Sacks at the helm (Geni, meanwhile, is still very much around as an independent entity, its current CEO Noah Tutak told TechCrunch via email today.)

The really cool thing is that TechCrunch was on it from the very beginning. Yammer launched officially in September 2008 at TC50, the TechCrunch-backed conference that has since been replaced with our bi-annual Disrupt events. David Sacks took the stage and did the first public demonstration of Yammer, positioning it as the private Twitter for intra-company communication, saying:

“We’ve been using it internally for about the past six months, and we think it’s so good that we decided to spin it out into its own company, Yammer, so that other companies can use it as well.”

You can watch that first demo, and the reactions of TC50 judges including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, right here:

The first reactions to Yammer were pretty enthusiastic, and the company went on to win the TC50′s top prize that year. Erick Schonfeld was the first to report on the launch for TechCrunch, writing:

“Just like Facebook in the early days, which required a university e-mail address to join, Yammer requires a corporate email address to join.

Unlike Twitter, Yammer actually has a business model. It is free to use for employees, but if a company wants to claim their network and get administrative tools to remove messages and users, set password policies, or set IP ranges for who can use it.”

That same bottom-up “freemium” business model structure is what eventually helped to attract the acquisition interest from Microsoft, according to CEO Steve Ballmer. Yammer is “pretty unique, maybe very unique, in the viral adoption model. You can throw the word ‘enterprise’ and ‘social’ on a bunch of different stuff, but you can’t find anybody who has really built a customer base of enterprise customers in the same way virally with great respect from the IT department, with great love from the consumer,” Ballmer said in a conference call with press and analysts this morning. Post-deal, Microsoft said, that revenue model will stay intact.

We at TechCrunch have actually been both users and office neighbors of Yammer, so the relationship here has stayed pretty close — sometimes uncomfortably so. So we do have an extra bit of pride seeing Yammer’s big exit confirmed today (and Steve Ballmer’s limo parked outside), even if the price tag causes some to balk just a bit (and complain even more about Yammer’s lack of an auto-refresh feature. Grumble grumble.) But hey, you know what they say about what haters are liable to do. And it could be argued that many of those who hate on Yammer only do it because they also love it — and use it — so very much.

Anyway! Big congratulations are in order, Yammer. Don’t forget us little bloggy people now that your startup days are officially behind you.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Enterprise perks management platform ChoicePass has been acquired by Salesforce, according to a blog post on the company’s website. As a result of the acquisition, the team will be joining the Salesforce organization, and its website and operations will be shut down on June 30, 2012.

ChoicePass was founded about a year ago, with the goal of “making HR sexy.” The startup had a Perks product that was designed to make it easier for employees to track and take advantage of corporate rewards and incentive programs. In May it launched an Android app and reportedly had plans to also roll out an iPhone and iPad app, but never quite got there.

The news comes as Salesforce has been aggressively ramping up its social capabilities through acquisition. It recently bought Buddy Media for $689 million. Other recent acquisitions include Radian6, Rypple, and Styppi.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but ChoicePass investors include Yammer CEO David Sacks, Badoo COO Ben Ling, ShopCo CEO Ben Smith, and PowerSet founder Lorenzo Thione.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch