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Socialtext Names Former Adobe & Cisco Executive Eugene Lee as CEO; Announces Close of Series-C Funding
PALO ALTO, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Socialtext today announced that Eugene Lee has been named Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of the leading provider of enterprise wiki and social software solutions. Prior to joining Socialtext, Lee held senior management positions at Adobe, Cisco and Banyan Systems, and was co-founder of Beyond Incorporated. Founding CEO and Web 2.0 visionary, Ross Mayfield, will transition to the role of Chairman, President & Co-founder and will work with Lee to target the next level of growth for Socialtext. Lee will assume day-to-day management and operational control over all aspects of Socialtext's business, including driving product direction and development, strategic alliances, and scaling the sales, marketing and support organizations globally. Lee's appointment comes on the heels of Socialtext closing a Series-C funding round of $9.5M from existing investors led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) with additional investors including Omidyar Network, SAP Ventures and notable Silicon Valley angels.
The infusion of additional funding and appointment of Lee to the position of CEO comes at an excellent time for Socialtext to capitalize on its strong position in the growing social software market. The company was recently spotlighted in the "Magic Quadrant for Team Collaboration & Social Software" from Gartner, Inc., in which Socialtext was positioned in the Visionaries Quadrant. Additionally, Socialtext provides the best-of-breed wiki for the Intel-led SuiteTwo bundle, which was also placed in the Visionaries Quadrant. The publication of this report indicates that the Web 2.0 technologies that comprise 'Enterprise 2.0' have gone mainstream and enterprise clients are actively moving to select and deploy team collaboration and social software tools, including wikis. This was reaffirmed earlier this month at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo when 'social software' was identified as one of the top 10 strategic technologies for 2008 and "one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years." More information on the Magic Quadrant can be found at www.socialtext.com/gartner-mq.
"Since its inception in 2002, Socialtext has grown to become a leading brand and thought leader in the social software space with over 4,000 customers using Socialtext wikis today," said Ross Mayfield, Socialtext, Chairman and President. "Eugene brings an incredible depth and breadth of experience to Socialtext that will help the company better scale to meet the needs of customers while maintaining solid revenue growth."
"Socialtext has established a leadership position in enterprise deployments of its wiki and social software solutions that have been proven to make organizations more productive and efficient," said newly appointed CEO, Eugene Lee. "I'm excited and honored to join and lead the Socialtext team and help take the company to the next level."
Lee comes to Socialtext from Adobe Systems, where he led Adobe's enterprise marketing and vertical market segments. Previously, he held several executive leadership roles at Cisco Systems, ranging from Vice President (VP) Worldwide Small/Medium Business Marketing to VP Worldwide Enterprise Marketing. Lee also held key management positions at Banyan Systems, including General Manager for the messaging business unit. He was co-founder of Beyond Inc., developers of the award-winning BeyondMail product, and holds four patents in messaging, workflow and privacy technologies. Lee has a B.A. in Physics and B.S. in Engineering and Computer Science from Harvard College and an MBA from M.I.T. Sloan School of Management.
"We are excited to see Eugene join Socialtext as CEO," said Tim Draper, Socialtext board member and Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. "His background in executive management, operations, and marketing will help propel Socialtext's momentum in the growing social software and services markets."
About Socialtext
As the first wiki company, Socialtext leads the industry in applying next-generation Web 2.0 technologies to the critical challenges facing businesses. Web 2.0 holds the promise of dramatically increasing business productivity, stimulating greater innovation, and creating tighter connections between employees, and with partners, suppliers and customers. With the most flexible deployment options in the industry - including appliances, hosted services, software and open-source - Socialtext wiki-centric social software solutions are designed for any organization that wants to accelerate team communications, better enable knowledge sharing, foster collaboration, and build online communities. Today, over 4,000 organizations use Socialtext, including BASF, CondeNet, Epitaph Records, Humana, IKEA, Intel, MicroStrategy, MWW Group, Nokia, Ogilvy PR, SAP, Symantec, USA Today, Washington Post, among others. More information on Socialtext can be found at www.socialtext.com.
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