Description
Spiceworks is a professional network for the information technology (IT) industry that is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company was founded in January 2006 by Scott Abel, Jay Hallberg, Greg Kattawar, and Francis Sullivan to build IT management software.Spiceworks is an online community where users can collaborate and seek advice from one another and also engage in a marketplace to purchase IT-related services and products.
The network is estimated to be used by more than six million IT professionals and 3,000 technology vendors.The company's free proprietary software is written in Ruby on Rails,and runs exclusively on Microsoft Windows.The software discovers IP-addressable devices and includes help desk functionality and an integrated knowledge base.In 2005, Scott Abel, Jay Hallberg, Greg Kattawar and Francis Sullivan began discussing ways to build a social network for IT professionals where users could help one another solve common tech problems.
The four men were former executives at Motive, an Austin-based broadband and data management company that was acquired by Alcatel-Lucent in 2008. They formed Spiceworks in January 2006.The company received $5 million in venture funding from Austin Ventures in June 2006. The following month, Spiceworks publicly released a beta version of its platform The beta release followed a closed alpha test of the platform, which included 200 users.The 1.0 version of Spiceworks was released in November 2006.
The focus of Spiceworks 1.0 was simplifying the process of taking inventory, monitoring networks, and generating reports for IT professionals at small and medium sized businesses. By the end of its first year, Spiceworks had 120,000 users.Spiceworks received its second round of venture funding in August 2007.The funding round was led by Shasta Ventures and included Austin Ventures. The company released the 2.0 version of its software in December of that year.Spiceworks 3.0 was released in April 2008.
The company hosted its first conference for Spiceworks users in October 2008. The conference, named SpiceWorld, was held at the Alamo Drafthouse. The company released Spiceworks 4.0 in June 2009The company completed its third funding round in January 2010. The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners and also included Shasta Ventures and Austin Ventures. Later that year, Spiceworks 5.0 was released.In April 2011, Spiceworks raised $25 million in a venture funding.
This funding round, the company's fourth, included investments from Adams Street Partners and Tenaya Capital.The first international SpiceWorld conference was held in London, England in May 2012.Spiceworks 6.0 was released in July. The company also opened its European headquarters in London, England in 2012.Spiceworks released version 7.0 of its software in September 2013. In February 2014, the company announced a series E financing round worth $57 million led by Goldman Sachs.Spiceworks released version 1.0 of its free Network Monitor product in December 2014.
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