The investment community put some serious weight behind the underpinnings of Conversational Commerce when New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and SAP Ventures chipped in with original investors to double the outside capitalization of Lithium Technologies. Those past investors include Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Emergence Capital, Greenspring Associates, Shasta Ventures and Tenaya Capital. The company is already cash-flow positive, according to this report by Ryan Lawler at GigaOm. That means that investors see great (and global) potential for Lithium to achieve its strategic objective of helping its client companies to engage more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lithium was a major presence at our Conversational Commerce Conference (C3) last February. Its executives and one of its customers (FICO) described the power of promoting conversations between (or among) employees in marketing, customer care or other departments and individuals with specific questions or issues that they need to resolve. At the time, we saw Lithium tackling issues that were largely internal for companies who had to sort out tensions between the Marketing Department (with “brand” and “message” top of mind) and Customer Care or Contact Center personnel who saw themselves often play the role of customer advocate.

Lithium bridges the gaps by creating a social communications platforms where customers, prospects and enterprise employees can join in forums to resolve the issues that originate directly from customers or prospects, rather than alpha bloggers or angry Twitterers. The additional investment (which brings Lithium’s total capitalization from outsiders to $101 million) will fuel new hiring and investment to enable global expansion. According to Lawler’s report, the company plans to double its 200 current employee count and expand its global reach beyond North America and Western Europe, targeting Asia and the Pacific Rim.

As the saying goes, “Money talks!” and Lithium’s message in the social business domain has been that “customers don’t want to ‘Friend’ you, they want to get something done.” Opus Research would add that it starts with a genuine conversation, not a someone railing or whining on Twitter or Facebook. Lithium recognized this fact from the beginning and it is being rewarded by investors who see the concept’s global potential.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Social CRM, Lithium, conversational commerce, venture funding