Photo: Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for brands and businesses to bypass custom development and bring people together with content, community, online courses, and subscription commerce. The company recently announced an $11 million Series A round of funding led by Intel Capital and Sierra Wasatch.
Existing investors First Round Capital, Floodgate Partners, BBG Ventures, Lucas Venture Group, Dave Welch, and Mighty Networks founder and CEO Gina Bianchini also participated in this round.
What does Mighty Networks do? Mighty Networks essentially allows users to build a social network around their brand — which is inspired by the emerging $30 billion Experiential Commerce category where brands deliver a unified and engaging digital retail experience and is fueled by native creators and influencers.
Mighty Networks’ platforms utilize proprietary algorithms and smart technology to ensure that the most relevant people in the network meet others based on location, interests, topics, events, and online courses.
Mighty Networks also delivers multiple elements of a creator’s business including community, content, online courses, and subscription commerce in one place. And it replaces the need to connect 10 or 20 different digital services or setup custom development.
Gina Bianchini / Photo Credit: Gina Bianchini via LinkedIn
“There are over 360 million ‘creators with a purpose’ today bringing together their fans and followers in deeper ways than what social media provides. They are curating amazing community experiences, facilitating relevant content, and sharing expertise––services that are so valuable that they can charge for them,” said Bianchini in a statement. “With a Mighty Network, we are giving creators a way to streamline their business and avoid the risk and cost of custom development.”
Prior to launching Mighty Networks, Bianchini was the CEO and co-founder of a company called Ning, which was a SaaS-based platform company that deployed social communities and was acquired by Glam for a reported $150 million. Entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen also worked on Ning as a co-founder. After working on Ning, Bianchini then worked with Andreessen as an entrepreneur-in-residence for less than a year before launching Mighty Networks.
“Given the rapid growth and emerging opportunity around Experiential Commerce, we’re pleased to support Mighty Networks in realizing their vision. We’re enthusiastic about the ways machine learning and artificial intelligence can be applied to help brands and businesses make increasingly better, well-informed decisions more quickly as they market, sell, and deliver new combinations of digital services,” added Intel SVP and Intel Capital president Wendell Brooks.
Mighty Networks offers a freemium subscription model that is similar to Shopify or Squarespace. And anyone can create a Mighty Network for free and upgrade to Mighty Brand or Business as they plan to add unlimited groups or online courses or to Mighty Pro — which enables them to bypass custom development while building their brand.
The company originally launched in 2011 and the last institutional round happened back in October 2016 with a $5 million Series A. And the company also raised seed rounds in 2010 and 2011.
