2012Watch: Lithium Technologies Is On A Roll, Raises $53m And Plans Move To San Francisco

Posted by Tom Foremski - January 13, 2012

Lithium Technologies co-founder Lyle Fong.

Lithium Technologies is on a roll - the Emeryville based company recently raised $53.4 million and has a full order book for its enterprise social media platform.

Thursday evening Lithium Technologies held a dinner celebrating the publication of its Principal Scientist Michael Wu's new book, "The Science of Social." I was very impressed with the people I met and will follow up with a more in-deph profile of the company later this month.

Lyle Fong, co-founder (above) and Chief Strategist is very interesting. He was once a professional video gamer and then created an online community for other video gamers. It was that infrastructure that eventually became the basis for Lithium Technologies, after large enterprises wanted to build something similar for their own uses.

Mr Fong says he rarely plays video games anymore but he did try out Skyrim over the holidays. He said the game is excellent, he put in 100 hours and now has to limit himself to 30 minutes at a time.

Lithium has a lot of momentum and is growing rapidly. It has run out of office space and is planning a mid-year move to San Francisco. It's not sure where it will find the office space it needs. One possibility is Salesforces' former offices by the Embarcadero, a superb location by the Ferry Building.

Keep a watch on Lithium Technologies in 2012.