Many congratulations to Toni and his team at eConozco for selling their company!
Seems like a smart move to me. eConozco is a Spanish business networking website, and this sector seems to be evolving to an environment with just a handful of very large, well capitalized players such as LinkedIn or eConozco’s buyers, Xing (formerly called OpenBC).
I first met Toni after stumbling upon another website his company operates, the delightful pricenoia. We met for a coffee soon after, and have kept in touch on and off over the last couple of years, following each other’s progress.
One thing that makes me happy to see this successful exit is that Toni and his team are self-funded and self-made. Now, they’ll be able to focus more on their latest project, a mobile social network called festuc, which is taking off among young Spanish kids.
Congrats!
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I attended the First Tuesday meeting where Toni was present back in March this year and he led an interesting debate on social networking sites, comparing the global players such as linked.com with the Spanish ones (econozco, neurona etc.).
It looks increasingly like linkedin.com is in need of a European acquisition if it wants to become a global player and expand beyond its mainstay english-speaking market or it will eventually lose out to Xing which not only has a solid European base but apparently a good positioning in Asia as well.
Another key issue is how the web/wireless convergence will impact current incumbents like Xing, with startups that use a fresh approach to combine mobile and web applications (examples include hipoqih in Spain and plazes from Germany) effectively gathering momentum and support at a rapid pace.