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Tag: Identified.com

  • Identified Raises $21 Million in Series B Funding

    Identified.com has managed to secure $21 million in series B funding after already raising a $1.5 million Series A financing. The site, which is the fastest growing career site for young professionals, had VantagePoint Capital Partners and Capricorn Investment Group co-lead the round with participation from notable previous investors including Tim Draper, Bill Draper and Innovation Endeavors. As a condition of the funding, Bill Harding, managing director from VantagePoint will join Identified’s Board of Directors.

    “There is an incredible opportunity for innovation in professional networking,” said Bill Harding, managing director at VantagePoint Capital Partners. “With their breadth of data on millennials, Identified has the potential to disrupt professional networking for the young demographic and create valuable solutions for job seekers and businesses alike.”

    Identified.com has exploded in the recent past couple of months. They recently hit the 10 million user milestone and are still growing today. They are growing so fast that they are having to move into a new facility to support the influx of new staff members to support the sites growth. In fact, the new round of Series B funding is going to used to further expand the team, focusing on game designers to develop the user experience and data scientists to manage the company’s fast growing database. In addition, Identified is developing enterprise solutions for companies to leverage the Identified platform for recruiting, branding, sales, advertising and business intelligence tools.

    “We’re redefining professional identity online for a generation of people who have grown up using Facebook, social media and playing games online,” said Brendan Wallace, co-founder and co-CEO of Identified. “For young users, job boards and existing professional networking experiences are boring. We are committed to building an experience that is incredibly engaging and informative for our users by taking the principles of game design and applying them to managing your career.”

    Founded in 2010 and headquartered in San Francisco, Identified pioneered the Identified Score which helps users track their career progress in real time and will eventually provide feedback on how different education and work decisions impact their professional future.

    All you need to do is go to their app on Facebook and enter some info about you jobs both past and present . Also you need to enter your education level, and you get a score! Pretty easy app that nearly anyone can do. All you need is Facebook and you are good to go!

    Pictured above is Adeyemi Ajao, Identified.com co-CEO, and Brendan Wallace, Identified.com co-CEO

  • Identified.com Reaches 10 Million Registered Users

    Just 8 months after it launched, Identified.com has reached the 10 million registered user mark! The Facebook-based professional networking platform had only 2 million registered users in March so it is growing leaps and bounds. It is growing so fast that hey also just announced that they are moving to the San Francisco neighborhood of China Basin which is home to the San Francisco Giants and is one of the hotspots in the city by the bay. The company is upgrading its office space to a brand spanking new 17,000 square foot facility.

    “We are thrilled to be expanding our team to focus on building a product that empowers young professionals in their careers in a way that has never been possible before,” said Brendan Wallace, co-founder and co-CEO of Identified. “We’re also excited to stay in San Francisco, where we can work in a collegial technology ecosystem.”

    Identified has grown some traction with the younger crowd due to its ability to allow them to use their Facebook friend networks but also keep a division between their professional and social lives. The network allows people to add basic professional information so they have an active, up-to-date professional profile available to employers on a separate site. The separation between what can be seen by everyone and what can be seen by potential employers is what sets this social job network apart from a site like LinkdIn. Also, 90% of the people on Identified.com are under the age of 29, so it is a great way for employers who are looking for some ambitious and young workers to find what they need.

    Identified’s driving concept is the Identified Score, a metric derived from the work history, education, and demographic data of millions of Facebook users, as well as the hiring behaviors of thousands of companies. As people add information and progress in their careers, they gain points to increase their Identified Score. The points represent the value of key information currently in demand by employers that helps young students and professionals plan their careers. So in this tough job market a company using a sophisticated algorithm to match up prospective employers and job seekers can be paramount to success for both parties.

  • Identified.com Grows to Two Million in Six Months

    Startup Identified.com is meeting with remarkable success in its mere six months of existence. The Facebook-based data analytics company has doubled in size nearly every month since its September 2011 launch.

    The company owes its success primarily to users from the younger generations. According to Appdata.com, current Identified users average just 23.5 years-old, with 90 percent under 35 and nearly 60 percent under 25 years-old. Users under 35 years-old make up only 40 percent of competitor site LinkedIn, which appeals more to older demographics.

    “The Facebook generation does not exist on LinkedIn, which is dominated by more experienced professionals, or on outdated job boards, which are not in tune with the social generation,” said co-founder and co-CEO Brendan Wallace. “Identified’s young users love that they can create and control their professional profile online separate from their Facebook profile. This is clearly resonating with them. At this rate of growth we expect to hit 25 million active users by June, predominantly under age 35.”

    A two-way street serving both job seekers and HR departments, Identified’s driving concept is the Identified Score, a metric derived from the work history, education, and demographic data of 247 million Facebook users, as well as the hiring behaviors of thousands of companies. In short, when you create an Identified profile and link it to your Facebook account, the company’s algorithms digest your life’s details and let you know where you fall–from 0 to 100–on the hiring desirability scale. Recruiters then use this score to identify likely candidates, and to rank applicants based on their qualifications. If you don’t like your score, you can add further information to your account and see if that makes a difference. Participating companies are also assigned an Identified Score.

    Identified looks to have identified a market niche pretty well in choosing to go after Millenials. Members of this generation are already at home in their existing social profiles, and are pretty shrewd about emerging social platforms. To gain their patronage, a new platform has to be intuitive, useful, and–generally–easily linked to their other accounts. Identified has made it easy for Millenials to integrate their data into the new platform.

    The company is also aggressively marketing their services at events that attract talented young professionals, like this year’s Game Developer’s Conference.

    What about industry leader LinkedIn? I wouldn’t delete my profile just yet. Identified may be making waves early in its young life, but even its projected growth to 25 million users will be a drop in the bucket compared to the older, more experienced platform’s 150 million. LinkedIn’s profits may have slumped in 2011, but the company will likely dominate user share for quite a while yet.