Yammer banks another $85M for work-chatting service

DFJ Growth led the fifth round of funding for the social network system for enterprises

The social networking system for enterprises, Yammer, grabbed a whopping $85 million in a Series-E round of funding late Wednesday. This round was led by DFJ Growth and brings the company's total funding to $142 million. 

Among the other new investors lining up for this growing company were Meritech Capital Partners; Capricorn Investment Group LLC, the investment arm of Jeff Skoll; and Khosla Ventures.

Also, angel investors that backed this business include Max Levchin, Bill Lee, and Ronnie Lott, the NFL Hall of Fame safety from the glory years of the San Francisco 49ers.

The popular networking company stated that it will use the financing to grow its sales and engineering teams globally. The San Francisco-based company will also start investigating strategic acquisitions and invest in building brand awareness among enterprise buyers.

Yammer's products enable business-oriented communications within organizations so that various departments can share crucial data on a secure internal circuit. The basic version of the platform is free, with additional features available at a premium like administrative and security controls.

The company has already secured more than 4 million corporate users in the four years since its launch.

The system allows information to flow much more freely inside a company (for anywhere from 30 employees to 3000). Since email is limited because people can be left off messages, or could be added to too many messages, Yammer gets the conversation out of email and into a more open communication platform.  

 “Yammer launched the category of enterprise social networking and pioneered a new model that drove unprecedented adoption in the enterprise,” said David Sacks, founder and CEO, Yammer, in a statement. “This significant influx of capital provides us with the resources to expand quickly and strategically, innovate rapidly and extend our market leadership.”

This capital influx, is a promising follow-up to the success that Yammer saw last year. THe company tripled its sales as well as its employee headcount. 

Thursday, Yammer also launched its first advertising campaign with print and online ads highlighting the value of enterprise social networks.

One of Yammer's top competitors, Tibbr, a social network application that treats business data (such as invoicing and product development)like a part of a social network.