Spiceworks

The company was formed in January 2006 by Scott Abel, Jay Hallberg, Greg Kattawar and Francis Sullivan, former executives at Motive. The company received $5 million in series A funding from Austin Ventures in June 2006. Spiceworks' series B funding round was completed in August 2007 and included $8 million from Shasta Ventures and Austin Ventures. The company's $18 million series C funding round in January 2010 was headed by Institutional Venture Partners. In April 2011, Spiceworks received $25 million in series D funding from Adams Street Partners and Tenaya Capital and a 2014 series E financing round worth $57 million led by Goldman Sachs. In 2012, it opened its European headquarters in London, England. The company celebrated its tenth anniversary in January 2016 and announced plans to add 100 additional employees during the year. However, those plans were changed and in June 2016 the company announced that it was laying off approximately 12 percent of its workforce. In addition to the layoffs, several employees in leadership positions at Spiceworks left the company to join former CEO Scott Abel in founding a new startup, Resly Labs. Resly Labs later changed their name to Umuse. Ziff Davis acquired Spiceworks in September 2019.

Software

In July 2006, it released a public beta. The 1.0 version of Spiceworks was released in November 2006. It focused on simplifying the process of taking inventory, monitoring networks, and generating reports for IT professionals at small and medium-sized businesses. By the end of its first year, Spiceworks had 120,000 users.

The company released the 2.0 version of its software in December 2007. Subsequent versions followed, leading up to version 7.0 in 2013. The company released a free network monitor product in December 2014.

In June 2021, Spiceworks Desktop 7.5, became unavailable for download, and at the end of the year, end of life. The company released Cloud Help Desk solution.

Business model

Spiceworks offers its professional network and software free to users. The company generates most of its revenue through the sale of ads displayed on its network. A small percentage of its revenue is generated through purchases of IT products and services made through the Spiceworks platform.