We first reviewed online workspace startup Podio on its launch in March last year, and it looked pretty promising. A little like Box.net or 37Signals, Podio is closer to a more sophisticated Yammer, with lots of customising possible via its own internal ‘app’ store. Today it launches in two new language, Brazilian Portuguese and Italian, adding to its existing English, German, French, Danish and Spanish translations. Spilt between San Francisco and Copenhagen offices, Podio is now in use in 170 countries so, as CEO Tommy Ahlers says, the translations now make a lot of sense. Though you would think Chinese might also be a good addition?
Founded by Anders Pollas, Jon Froda and Kasper Hultin, the Danish startup brought on Ahlers (best known for selling ZYB to Vodafone in 2008) as a CEO and investor in August last year, and has brought in $4.5M in funding.
With Podio you an manage everything from expense reports to hiring, and you don’t follow users but “Spaces” where these things happen. On Podio you see Frequently Used Spaces, Contacts and Calendar on the right, with an activity stream of all actions on the left. From here you can get to anything, even adding or creating your one task-specific app.
In the Podio App store 45,000 apps have been created by users. Most choose to make those apps private to themselves but over 600 of them have been made publicly available, covering everything from CRM to Project Management etc. Podio doesn’t disclose user numbers.
So instead of using a a combination of Yammer, Box.net and SharePoint, you could, in theory, just use Podio.
Operating on a freemium model, you can also get an iPhone app and Android Apps and an Air App. Last year Podio won the European version of The Crunchies, The Europas Award for Best Business Startup.