Visible Path said to be bought
updated
Visible Path, a Silicon Valley start-up that offers companies a way for their employees to how their personal contacts are linked to others in their organization and elsewhere, has been bought by a multibillion, international company, according to this CNET article.
Visible Path has remained focused on serving companies — even as more popular consumer-focused networks such as LinkedIn, and now Facebook, have grabbed attention. It’s not clear whether Visibile Path was making money (we wrote about the company here, when it changed its chief executive a few months ago, and started shaking itself up a bit). The news comes as companies get more serious about providing social software to their employees.
We reported earlier about how News Corp. is negotiating to buy LinkedIn.
Visible Path’s service tracks how often you email certain people, how frequently those people respond, and then builds a ranking of your richest contacts, and shows you how those contacts, in turn, are connected with others. It lets you know which of your contacts you can draw on to help reach someone else you might not otherwise know.
Visible Path was working away for years. It was very early to the sector, but wasn’t able to exploit is as quickly as others have. It was backed with $22,7 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Menlo Ventures, and Integral Capital Partners.
Update: This version corrected an earlier version that suggested Pringo had acquired Visible Path. That information was clearly wrong.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
