LinkedIn Faces Competition From Startup Firm BranchOut

BranchOut has been there on Facebook as a Facebook app for quite some time. Whereas it has been lying low till now, it seems that it has plans of taking things to the next level now. According to the CEO of BranchOut, it can beat LinkedIn eventually because it has an exposure to a far greater audience than LinkedIn does.


The CEO of BranchOut, Rick Marini, is indeed right in a way. LinkedIn is a company in its own, a kind of an independent social network whereas BranchOut is simply an app on Facebook, the largest social network online. So when Marini says that ‘LinkedIn is a great company, and does a great job with 10 percent of the workforce. But the other 90 percent of the world is on Facebook. Those are the people we can finally give a professional profile to’, he is quite right.

In a bid to make things happen for BranchOut, the company has been raising cash. In a recent round of fund-raising, the company was able to get a handsome $25 million from investors. This makes the total investment that BranchOut has received over the last two years $49 million.

However, despite the investment and the high ambitions, BranchOut still has to go a long way before it can be a significant competitor to LinkedIn. Currently, BranchOut has a user base of 25 million. LinkedIn, on the other hand, reigns supreme in the world of professional social networks with its 150 million users.

But it does make sense that when exposed to 850 million users, BranchOut has a far greater field to play in. And it is precisely because of this that the company has been growing at a good pace.

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Salman

Salman Latif is a software engineer with a specific interest in social media, big data and real-world solutions using the two.Other than that, he is a bit of a gypsy. He also writes in his own blog. You can find him on Google+ and Twitter .

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