14 July 2020
Open Social raises EUR 1.25M from Nimbus Ventures and Peak Capital
Open Social provides an innovative online community platform for organizations that want to bring their members together online, whether it is to organize global volunteering efforts, share and generate new knowledge, drive crowd-innovation or collaborate using a digital co-working space. Since its inception, Open Social has built award-winning online community platforms for some of the largest international organizations, including the United Nations and Greenpeace.
Impressed by commercial, open-source and technical capabilities
With the secured EUR 1.25 million funding from Nimbus Ventures and Peak Capital, Open Social will further scale their services as an open-source SaaS-business to become a dominant player in the industry. “In 2020, we have seen a technological evolution that would normally take two years, happen in the span of just two months,” says Taco Potze, Founder and CEO at Open Social, “With increased decentralization of organizations comes concerns over privacy and data ownership. In this new area, our vision for an open web that inspires trusted connections and collaboration is more relevant than ever.”
Peak Capital and Open Social built a strong relationship starting at a TNW Conference: “Open Social has shown strong product-market-fit with its external community solution for NGOs,” says Johan van Mil, Managing Partner at Peak Capital. “With their open-source technology and extension strategy they are able to tailor the platform to specific requirements of clients among different industries. We have been impressed by the commercial and technical capabilities of the team.”
Recruiting top talent to drive product innovation and enter new markets
Auke van den Hout, Managing partner at Nimbus Ventures emphasized: “The capability to service an international client base in Europe and the USA confirms the potential of Open Social.” With the investment, and the added-value of the new partnerships, Open Social will grow its core SaaS business and recruit top talent for its development team and senior positions such as a Head of Sales. This will allow Open Social to further develop their product offering, enter new markets in Europe and the USA, take customer success management to the next level and most importantly: drive its innovation roadmap.
Open Social is eager to benefit from the renowned insights and expertise of Nimbus Ventures and Peak Capital. Their guidance will ensure that Open Social grows and scales-up in a successful and sustainable manner. As Taco Potze says: “We feel very lucky to have found investors who share the same passion to deliver great products to clients, understand the drive, and ambition to discover new markets. The experience of these partners and their teams is of great value in our mission to become the world’s leading community-building platform.”
About Open Social
Open Social launched as a social intranet and online community SaaS company. Through offering social intranet and online community software solutions, Open Social helps organizations with four primary solutions: Knowledge Portal, Social Learning, Online Community and Social Intranet. Open Social’s software is built on an open-source Drupal platform, leveraging the skills and expertise of thousands of active contributors worldwide to help organizations shift away from traditional intranets and proprietary social media platforms to build their online communities. The Open Social offices are in Amsterdam and Enschede, The Netherlands. More information can be found on https://www.getopensocial.com
About Nimbus Ventures and Peak Capital
Nimbus Ventures is an investment company that provides growth capital to scale-ups in various industries. Nimbus Ventures combines capital with hands-on support that focuses on international growth (especially US entry) and team development. Current investments are Boomerweb and easee (healthcare) and Retailisation and Lone Rooftop (both SaaS). The investors in Nimbus Ventures are leading and successful entrepreneurs in the Netherlands. More information can be found on https://nimbusventures.vc
Peak Capital is an European investment fund based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Founded and funded by experienced entrepreneurs, Peak Capital offers smart venture capital to European fast-growing early-stage Marketplace, Platform and SaaS companies. Peak Capital manages EUR 84 million and has made 25 investments to date including IENS, which was sold in 2014 to TripAdvisor (NASDAQ: TRIP), Radionomy, which was acquired in 2015 by Vivendi (EURONEXT: VIV) and CheapCargo, which was purchased in 2016 by PostNL (AMS: PNL). More information can be found on https://peak.capital