Identified Raises $21 Million in Series B Funding

SAN FRANCISCO, June 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Identified.com, the fastest growing career site for young professionals, today announced that it has raised a $21 million Series B round of financing to transform professional identity through gamification.

VantagePoint Capital Partners and Capricorn Investment Group co-led the round with participation from notable previous investors including Tim Draper, Bill Draper and Innovation Endeavors. Bill Harding, managing director from VantagePoint will join Identified's Board of Directors. Identified had previously raised a $1.5 million Series A financing.

Identified aims to help young people achieve their professional goals. By assembling some of the world's leading game design experts, Identified is building a fun, addictive, game-like experience where people can track and quantify their career development online.

Identified has been popular with young Facebook users who are eager to separate their social and professional presence online. Users import their basic work information from Facebook to Identified.com to create a distinct professional profile. Since its public launch in September 2011, Identified has grown to more than 10 million registered users, 90% of whom are under the age of 29. In the past five months, Identified experienced a 525% growth rate among users between the ages of 18-29 years old. 

"We're redefining professional identity online for a generation of people who have grown up using Facebook, social media and playing games online," said Brendan Wallace, co-founder and co-CEO of Identified. "For young users, job boards and existing professional networking experiences are boring. We are committed to building an experience that is incredibly engaging and informative for our users by taking the principles of game design and applying them to managing your career."

The Series B round of capital will be used to expand the team with a focus on game designers to develop the user experience and data scientists to manage the company's fast growing database. In addition, Identified is developing enterprise solutions for companies to leverage the Identified platform for recruiting, branding, sales, advertising and business intelligence tools.

"There is an incredible opportunity for innovation in professional networking," said Bill Harding, managing director at VantagePoint Capital Partners. "With their breadth of data on millennials, Identified has the potential to disrupt professional networking for the young demographic and create valuable solutions for job seekers and businesses alike."

Identified pioneered the Identified Score which helps users track their career progress in real time and will eventually provide feedback on how different education and work decisions impact their professional future.

"Identified is the next evolution of big data and gamification: helping young people leverage data to make career choices in a fun, interactive way," said Bill Draper, managing partner of Draper Richards and investor in Identified.

About Identified

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in San Francisco, Identified is the fastest growing career site for young professionals aged 18-29 with a community of 10 million. Using Facebook connections, Identified lets users create professional profiles on a separate platform. Identified analyzes the work history, education and demographic data of over 400 million Facebook users, and tracks the hiring behaviors of thousands of companies to produce an Identified Score for people, companies and schools. Identified has raised a total of $22.5 million from VantagePoint Capital Partners, Capricorn Investment Group, Bill Draper, Tim Draper, Innovation Endeavors and others.

Identified was conceived as a research initiative at Stanford University by Brendan Wallace and Adeyemi Ajao. For more information and to find out your Identified Score, visit www.identified.com.

About VantagePoint Capital Partners:

VantagePoint Capital Partners is a global leader in financing and supporting transformative companies focused on energy innovation, internet and digital media. With a best-in-class investment team of business and scientific experts, a broad network of corporate Strategic Partners, accomplished Senior Advisors, and more than $4 billion in committed capital, the Firm has the resources and talent to build important, industry-leading companies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Beijing, VantagePoint has active investments in over 70 companies, including BrightSource Energy, Liquid Robotics, edo, Vook, Genomatica, ChaCha, SWITCH Lighting, Solazyme, Trilliant, Tendril and Better Place. For more information, visit www.vpcp.com

About Capricorn Investment Group

Capricorn Investment Group is a private, independent investment firm that manages approximately $4 billion of capital on behalf of a small number of investors, including Jeff Skoll and the Skoll Foundation.  Capricorn's investment process is grounded in comprehensive perspectives on global trends in energy, agriculture, transportation, healthcare and technology.  As a capital provider, Capricorn develops long-term relationships with innovative, success-focused investors, companies and entrepreneurs across the world. Capricorn recently invested in social enterprise company Yammer.

SOURCE Identified