Like discovering a soulmate or pairing up with a cofounder, finding a fitting, effective board member can be tough.
To help solve this problem, Boston-based BoardProspects developed an online community platform that connects prospective board members with companies and organizations looking to fill board seats. Today, the startup announced that it has raised $2.4 million in Series A funding, most of which comes from atypical angel investors such as private companies, CEOs, public company directors and investment bankers, cofounder and CEO Mark Rogers told BostInno.
Since its start in 2010, Board Prospects has raised $3.15 million in financing. The company closed a seed round of $750,000 in 2011. With the funds, the company will continue to build out its free community-driven platform and add new features, such as private and public discussion groups, completely anonymous profiles and recruitment modules.
Lawyers-turned-cofounders Rogers and Bobby Driscoll thought up the idea for the company based upon their own experiences with corporate governance.
“We noticed that there was a need to improve the boardroom recruitment process,” Rogers told BostInno in a phone conversation. “Most of the time, it’s limited to a ‘who do you know’ situation, and for many organizations, that’s the end of it.”
In Roger’s own words, BoardProspects was designed to “bring together both sides of the equation.” In a way, BoardProspects serves as a matchmaker between board members and companies, organizations and startups in need. “There wasn’t a lack of board candidates, but rather there wasn’t simply a forum where you could say ‘this is who I am, and this is what I am looking for,’” explained Rogers.
Currently, the platform, which launched its 2.0 update in August, hosts 3,000 individuals and around 200 companies. In addition to the United States and North America, BoardProspects draws talent from all over the world, including England, Canada, Ireland, and Australia, reports Rogers.
In addition to the feature updates, BoardProspects also has plans to roll out BoardU, an online certification process that will be used to verify a potential board members credentials, along with updating he or she with the most current information possible.
For a startup dedicated to helping pair people with ideal boards, BoardProspects has an impressive list of professionals proffering advice. Members of the company’s board include Kathryn Swintek, Managing Partner of Golden Seeds Fund 2; Yan Pujante, one of the Founding Team Members of LinkedIn and served for several years as the company’s Chief Software Architect; Justin Miller, President of Comcast Silicon Valley and CEO of Plaxo.com; Steve Maxwell, a General Partner at NewVantage Partners; and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, an Associate Professor of Business Administration and Richard Hodgson Fellow in the Strategy Unit at the Harvard Business School.
