Salesforce and Softbank Group invest $4 Million in Seesmic

Well it looks increasingly likely that we’ll see Seesmic commit to becoming an enterprise social media tool with news that the company has taken $4 million investment from Salesforce and a Softbank Group company.

Seesmic has previously raised $12 million from a roster of high profile investors including Ron Conway, Atomico Ventures and Steve Case. The company originated as a short social video sharing service, but ‘pivoted’ into the social media communication application space in 2009.

Seesmic’s recent moves has seen the company stray away from the consumer marketplace and further into the enterprise space via partnerships with Microsoft and now Salesforce.

Salesforce has been on somewhat of an acquisition spree of late which makes it all the more interesting that the company decided to invest rather than acquire Seesmic. Salesforce acquired Heroku in December last year, Etacts in the same month and most recently DimDim in January 2011.

Here is the official release:

Seesmic Receives $4 Million Investment

SAN FRANCISCO – Feb 1, 2011 – Seesmic, the leading maker of applications that monitor social networks across mobile devices, today announced a $4 million investment from salesforce.com, inc. and a Softbank Group company managed by Softbank Holdings Inc.

Seesmic helps companies monitor, engage and build their brands across social networks and mobile devices. The Seesmic Desktop provides a single console that lets companies view and respond, in real time, to comments being made about their brands in Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. Seesmic Desktop works with Apple’s iPhone and Macintosh computers, smartphones running Google’s Android or Windows Phone 7 mobile operating systems, Research in Motion’s Blackberry and on personal computers.

Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, and Softbank group join previous investors Atomico, Omidyar Network and Wellington Partners. Seesmic has received a total of $16 million, including the most-recent investment round.

Seesmic and Salesforce.com have worked closely for more than six months to create a seamless integration between Seesmic Desktop and Salesforce Chatter, the industry’s first enterprise social collaboration app and platform. Leveraging the social features popularized by Facebook and Twitter — such as profiles, status updates and real-time feeds — Chatter lets employees “follow” documents, people, business processes and application data. The result is a new level of productivity that crosses departments and organizational barriers. By integrating with Chatter, Seesmic Desktop will enable salesforce.com users to immediately see comments that customers have posted on Facebook and Twitter.
“Salesforce.com has become a valued partner as we work together to bridge external and enterprise social communication with Chatter. These investments will enable us to reach more enterprise customers” said Loic Le Meur, CEO, Seesmic.