Startup Finds Funding via LinkedIn

Although LinkedIn has become best known for recruiting and job search, angel and venture funding has more quietly been one of the most successful applications of LinkedIn. Even knowing that, in reading this story about how web collaboration startup Goshido used LinkedIn to raise capital I was amazed at just how strong the results were:

Limerick-based Goshido went about raising that funding in a novel — although we imagine soon-to-be-repeated-by-others — method. They turned to a selected list of Enterprise 2.0 investors who are present on LinkedIn, offering 10 small slots of investment for a total of 20% equity for around US$ 230,000.

For those 10 slots they received 200 responses and soon picked the most appropriate investors, turning around in a week a fund-raising exercise that can take some months or years.

200 responses in less than a week? That’s unheard of! On top of that, $230K for 20% = $1.15M valuation for a company that’s pre-revenue (presumably, since they’re currently in limited private beta)? Pretty impressive, especially considering it’s a fairly crowded market they’re entering.

Take note of that “soon-to-be-repeated-by-others method”. With results like this, it seems that tools like LinkedIn may not just be facilitating the fund-raising process, but completely disrupting the old model.

Scott Allen  (299 Posts)