$10m investment for community software firm Get Satisfaction

The platform offers a mix of customer service, relationship management and product development capabilities, with customers including Proctor & Gamble, Adobe, Wal-Mart, Foursquare and Microsoft.

Participants in the more than 50,000 communities run on the Get Satisfaction platform are encouraged to ask questions of brands and other customers, to offer product ideas and feedback and to report on any problems they are experiencing.

InterWest led the most recent funding round and general partner Bruce Cleveland talked up the platform’s “ability to capture conversations from customers of any brand wherever they are, then harness those conversations into actionable insight”.

Get Satisfaction launched in 2007 with online shoe retailer Zappos as its first customer. CEO Wendy Lea (pictured) said: “Our view of social business is about customers becoming active participants in every aspect of the business, creating tangible value on both sides of the relationship.”