SkillPages CEO Iain MacDonald
As well as breaching the 5m user mark, Irish skill-based social network SkillPages has just closed a US$9.5m Series B funding round.
Proof that the network is accelerating, in October SkillPages Iain MacDonald told the Dublin Web Summit that at that point the service had achieved 2m users in 10 months. This means that in the intervening eight months SkillPages has added 3m new users.
It is understood that the latest round included investment from ACT Ventures and U2 manager Paul McGuinness.
Writing in the SkillPages blog last night MacDonald wrote: “Our funding round will allow us to continue to invest in technology and a team that helps unlock new opportunities for people everywhere.
“The recent implementation of the ‘SkillGraph’ technology is an example of this commitment to improving our members experience through a total focus on relevance,” MacDonald said.
“Having 5 million people join the platform since we launched in January 2011 is both humbling and exciting. Our additional funding will help us to increase our focus on continuing to accelerate our user growth in order to make SkillPages a platform that is useful for many millions of people around the world,” he added.
Weedle’s founders are Iain MacDonald, former chief executive of broadband provider Perlico, and Michael Gallagher, who has worked in telecommunications and financial services in the US and Ireland.
Prior to starting SkillPages, which was originally known as Weedle, MacDonald sold his broadband company Perlico to Vodafone in 2008 for €80m.
