Social Collaboration Platform CollectiveX Is Reborn As Groupsite

CollectiveX, a LinkedIn-like professional social network focused on offering collaboration and sharing tools for groups (companies, boards of directors) has renamed the company Groupsite.com, after its flagship product Groupsites. Groupsites lets anyone create a social network for either business or social purposes. The company has also raised an undisclosed amount of funding in the range of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from Siemer & Associates and is in the process of raising another round.

We first wrote about CollectiveX, founded by serial entrepreneur Clarence Wooten, back in 2005 when it first went into private beta. In May 2006, the service launched, and at TechCrunch40, they launched Groupsites. Last fall, CollectiveX launched version 2.0 of Groupsites.

The idea of Groupsites overlaps with both LinkedIn and Ning. Groupsite.com provides a easy-to-use platform for business groups to share contact information, files (meeting minutes, financials, etc.) and and collaborate on calendars, forums etc. Similar to Ning, Groupsites lets users quickly and easily create a social network. And groups can create shared customizable websites for members. Users can also take any module on a page and embed it on a third party site, or pull any third party widgets or code into their Groupsite site. Groupsites currently hosts the networks of more than 26,000 groups and powers close to 5,000 company intranets and project workgroups.

Groupsites is free, and the company charges additional fees for additional storage, advertising removal, and other premium features. Large companies can also pay a yearly license fee to create multiple networks. Groupsites has also launched a “Certified Partner Program,” which aims to be a collaboration of partners, including developers, designers, trainers, social media consultants and community builders, who commit to using Groupsite.com tools to help groups understand and use the platform. As we’ve said in the past, Groupsite isn’t the sexiest startup we’ve covered, but it uses a lot of the really innovative collaboration features to really help groups get organized.