Mzinga Gets US$ 5M, Expands Social Network Solutions for Enterprise

By Chelsi Nakano | Published Sep 24, 2009

“We’ve basically re-launched the company,” said Barry Libert, CEO of Mzinga, provider of social software and services, for the enterprise.

His statement was in regards to the company’s recent release of OmniSocial, a product designed to extend their online community hosting capabilities. Backed by their recent gain of US$ 5 million in equity investing, Mzinga looks like they’re hoping to move a pretty sizable mountain.

Zing-a!

Mzinga is a Massachusetts-based company driven by the desire to mix a little business with pleasure. That is, they believe providing social software to connect users with employees, customers, and partners can help to run a business “smarter and more competitively.”

Of course, a social business cocktail is nothing new these days, but supporters of Mzinga’s particular recipe include more than 14,000 communities in 160 countries worldwide. Not too shabby.

Money, Money, Money!

Their success recently gained them a bit of recognition from investors in the form of 5 million U.S. dollars, which they added to the other US$ 5 million they scored earlier this month. The US$ 10 million upgrades their total investment funds to a reported US$ 42.5 million.

Like much of the rest of the country, Mzinga’s got some debt to take care of. The new money will reportedly be used to pay down some of that debt, in addition to acquiring 9 new hires.

OmniSocial

The company is kicking off their newly turned leaf with the release of OmniSocial, their latest approach to changing the game social style. The software is designed to allow businesses to create and manage collaborative applications, widgets and sites, and will reportedly focus heavily on marketing, human resources and customer support areas of business.

Through the expansion of social networking platforms throughout the enterprise, Mzinga’s hopeful team is propositioning their new solution to challenge big-time collaboration software makers such as IBM (Lotus) and Microsoft (Outlook).

Moreover, Mzinga says the tool will be compatible with existing applications such as customer relationship management platforms.

Continued Libert: “Despite the financial correction… the enterprise market is really blossoming. Big businesses are recognizing the power of a single solution: a total solution to manage all their social media interactions.”

Though Mzinga's cash flow has seen a significant influx of dollar dollar bills, becoming viable competition for names as big as Microsoft and IBM is certainly a tall order. Keep up with them here and let's how they do.