Viadeo (www.viadeo.com) is an online business social
network with over 1.6 million members in Europe, and over 1 million additional members in its Group Company Tianji (www.tianji.com).
Viadeo and Tianji are growing at nearly 140k members per month.
Viadeo is
available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese, and will
soon be available in other languages.
Viadeo members
use the site to:
·
develop
a trusted public profile and a network of trusted business contacts in an easy
to use and secure online environment;
·
find
clients, suppliers, business partners, key business information, recruit or be
recruited;
·
create
or join ‘hubs’ or special interest areas and community forums and blogs to
exchange information and views etc
The origin
of the company lies stems from the decision of some 20 fast growing companies
in France
in 2000 to form an ‘offline gentleman’s club’. The principal aim was to
facilitate networking between these companies and access key business
information. By 2003 with over 100 companies the need for an online internal
business tool was identified which led to the development of the tool known as
Viaduc.
Viaduc,
which was only available in French until mid-December 2006, attracted almost a
million members within two years. Following the raising of first round venture
capital funding in mid 2006, the decision taken to internationalise the company
and the business name of the company was changed to Viadeo in December 2006. Offices were opened in London, Milan, Madrid and Munich. As of 1/10/07 Viadeo has about 80 staff.