Klout’s funding news this morning was quickly drowned out by Square’s funding and then both were drowned out by Groupon’s gargantuan round.
But for Klout, the funding round was pretty significant. In raising a surprisingly large $8.5 million, the company was singling its decision not to take a flip and to try to build a big company out of measuring influence online. For Klout founder and CEO Joe Fernandez, it’s a human version of page rank and the opportunity can be just as big.
Fernandez stopped by TechCrunch to talk about the inside drama of the round, including the team’s wrestling over whether to flip-or-not, whose money to take and what all that cash will be used for.
In a future segment, we dive into my concern: Can influence online really be accurately measured?
Video below.
Klout measures influence based on the ability to drive action across the social web. Any person can connect their social network accounts and Klout will generate a score on a scale of 1-100 that represents their ability to engage other people and inspire social actions. Klout enables everyone to gain insights that help them better understand how they influence others. Klout also provides people with opportunities to shape and be recognized for their influence.
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