Workshare acquires IdeaPlane, an enterprise social network

BGF portfolio company Workshare, a leading provider of secure enterprise collaboration applications, yesterday announced that it has acquired IdeaPlane, an enterprise social network built specifically for highly regulated industries.

The deal will provide Workshare customers with a complete collaboration and communication solution by integrating IdeaPlane’s easy-to-use, secure and compliant social networking features into Workshare’s collaboration platform.

According to a recent report by McKinsey & Company, adopting social technologies offers companies the potential to improve productivity of highly skilled workers by 20-25% – and save billions of dollars from time lost on inefficient communications and information searches.

Built in partnership with one of the world’s largest investment banks and launched earlier this year, IdeaPlane’s customizable social networking platform can be rapidly and securely deployed across regulated organizations. IdeaPlane will enhance the Workshare platform with robust social networking features, including status updates; the promotion of important events, news and content; email notifications and the creation of open, closed and secret groups. Enterprise administration features allow companies to comprehensively manage and moderate the network.

The acquisition comes two months after BGF invested £7.25 million of growth capital in SkyDox alongside Scottish Equity Partners, management and other employee shareholders in September 2012 as part of a £20 million investment round. The capital raised enabled SkyDox to acquire Workshare.

Anthony Foy, CEO of Workshare, said:

“Our combined platform will allow organizations to monitor, manage and closely control the social network being used within their organizations while facilitating collaboration and the exchange of information and ideas.”

James Fabricant, founder and CEO of Ideaplane commented:

“This acquisition makes strategic sense for us given both companies’ focus on customers for whom security, compliance and control are paramount. We have a shared vision for the application of social tools in the enterprise and we have platforms that can be integrated into one unified solution to realize that vision.”