BestVendor grabs $3M to help professionals find great apps

Consumer-facing applications get all the love, but professionals need apps too, right? Yes, says BestVendor, a startup that aims to help business folks find the best web, mobile and desktop applications. Now, the company has $3 million in fresh funding to complete that mission.

The just-hatched company focuses its attention on the lesser-loved class of applications — you know, the super important category of apps that help us perform better at work — and operates a recommendations and reviews site for business professionals, modeled after Yelp.

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BestVendor was founded in January 2011, and launched its open beta in early November. Today, just one month later, more than 4,800 users, who each have shared, on average, 13 of their favorite applications, turn to BestVendor for apps-for-work recommendations, the company said.

The site operates around the sharing-is-caring mantra of today’s social web. “Ten years ago it would have seemed weird that we all share our resumes online using Linkedin. We’re working towards a world where professionals are sharing the tools they’re using online and it becomes part of their identity,” BestVendor co-founder Jeff Giesa told VentureBeat in a previous interview.

The idea seems to have merit: Business folks always want to find the best apps, and app makers could really use the additional publicity (as long as it’s good, which may not always be the case). And while the business model is a bit unclear — Giesa said the model is to help business application providers, particularly SMBs, acquire new customers — investors have decided that BestVendor is worth at least a $3 million wager.

In total, the New York-based company has raised $3.6 million in funding across Series A and seed rounds. The latest round was co-led by RRE Ventures and SoftBank Capital. Lerer Ventures, Old Willow Partners and David Tisch also participated in the round.

[Image via sarchi/Flickr]