PaperShare
Content marketing cloud with real-time distribution that delivers leads from content.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | €0.0 | round | |
| N/A | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Acquisition | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Founded in 2011 by Doug Brown and David Greschler, PaperShare operated as a social content network tailored for business and technical professionals. The company was established in Kirkland, WA, with the objective of creating a focused platform where individuals within the same industry could connect with relevant information, companies, and peers. The concept for PaperShare emerged when co-founder Doug Brown recognized that users of his virtualization industry website, Dabcc.com, were downloading substantial amounts of content but lacked a way to connect with one another. This observation led to the development of a platform designed to make business and technical content social, enabling like-minded professionals to network and share insights.
PaperShare functioned as a 'social content network' that organized and facilitated the exchange of deep technical and business information. The platform allowed users to discover content relevant to their specific industry, initially focusing on topics like cloud computing and virtualization, and then connect with others interested in the same materials. It aimed to serve as a professional alternative to mainstream social networks by filtering out non-business-related content. The primary clients were business and technical professionals, as well as companies looking to engage with these specialized communities. The business model was structured around a freemium service, offering a free basic version with plans to introduce premium tiers for a monthly or annual fee.
The service provided users with a platform to build a network of professionals with similar interests and to share and discover high-quality professional content. This was intended to help users and businesses make better-informed decisions. For companies, PaperShare offered a tool to bridge traditional marketing with social media outreach by providing a direct channel to a targeted professional audience. After raising $2.18M in funding from investors including Rembrandt Venture Partners, PaperShare was acquired by Dynamic Signal on August 25, 2014.
Keywords: social content network, professional networking, B2B media, information services, content sharing, technical professionals, business networking, vertical industry community, cloud computing content, virtualization content, professional content platform, industry-specific network, Dynamic Signal acquisition, Doug Brown, David Greschler, online collaboration, knowledge sharing, professional community, B2B social media