Nimble Jumps on New Social Features

Nimble has added integration tools between social networks.

Image: Nimble

John Ferrara, the serial entrepreneur who founded Nimble, told Portfolio.com in January that he was getting ready to hit the gas. Now he has.

The company Ferrara founded two years ago, pouring $2 million of his own money into it before taking outside funding, introduced this morning a suite of features that will allow businesses to integrate their Facebook, Twitter, Google +, email, and other contacts and news feeds into one place. The idea is for businesspeople to be able to mine their social networks for information critical to their work.

Features will all be delivered from the cloud, meaning businesses will pay a $15 fee per user for the service, but won’t have to install software on machines or pay for servers to run it. Individuals who use Nimble won’t have to pay for it.

Ferrara’s idea is to revolutionize traditional customer relationship management services, competing with such providers as Salesforce.com and business software giants like Oracle and SAP.

"Traditional CRM systems fail at relationship management, and that's why people don't use them for engagement," Ferrara, the chief executive of Nimble, said in a release. "The era of customer engagement is now, and it starts with listening. You can't just snap social onto legacy CRM platforms and expect it to be effective. Nimble was built from the ground up for active social listening and engagement.”

Before rolling out the 2.0 version of Nimble today, Ferrara’s Southern California company had attracted 30,000 users and $1 million in investment from such investors as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Google Ventures.

He’s now on the hunt for more venture capital, aiming to raise $6 million to $10 million.