Viadeo

Viadeo is a Web 2.0 professional social network with over 35 million members worldwide in 2010, and a membership base that was growing by more than one million per month in 2009. Members include business owners, entrepreneurs and managers from a diverse range of enterprises. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Viadeo was founded in May 2004 by Dan Serfaty, a graduate of the HEC School of Management in Paris, and Thierry Lunati, a graduate of École centrale Paris.

From November 2006 to August 2007, Viadeo raised €5 million twice in funding from investors AGF Private Equity and Ventech. Later that year, Viadeo announced the acquisition of Tianji.com, a Chinese business social network.

Six months after purchasing Tianji, in July 2008 Viadeo acquired its Spanish competitor ICTnet. Launched in 1995, ICTnet had 300,000 members and popular in South America.

In early 2009, Viadeo acquired the Indian professional social networks services, ApnaCircle. ApnaCircle, with 300,000 members at the time of the acquisition, was founded by Yogesh Bansal and later joined by Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail, as board member.

On 13 October 2009, Viadeo announced the acquisition of the Canadian contact management website, unyk.com. At the time, unyk had 16 million members around the world, and made Viadeo second only to LinkedIn in terms of total membership.

The company is headquartered in Paris, and employs a global staff of 200, with offices in London, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Beijing, New Delhi, Mexico City and Montreal. The company recently opened an office in San Francisco. In 2009, Viadeo had estimated annual turnover of $40 million  and is profitable since last quarter of 2009.

Viadeo service

Viadeo is a business-oriented online social networking platform. Viadeo lets members maintain a list of business partners, allowing them to stay in touch, use or help each other to find a job, or create business opportunities.

Development strategy

Viadeo depends on 3 revenue streams: premium membership, advertising, and services to recruiters.Viadeo's strategy is based on a glocal approach, assuming that most professionals do business locally. With 4.5 million members, China is the most represented country. Since February 2010, Tianji is available in English allowing non-Chinese professionals to communicate and network in China. 10% of members are based in France where Viadeo, according to French Financial newspapers, had a strong effect on traditional French Business School (Grande École) alumni networks. Viadeo is mainly focusing on Europe and emerging countries such as BRIC countries.

Partnerships

Google OpenSocial: Viadeo is partner since launch in 2007

IBM Lotus Notes: Viadeo available for professionals using IBM Lotus Notes

Microsoft Outlook Connector: Viadeo available on Outlook.