Viadeo, a Paris-based LinkedIn competitor with over 45 million members worldwide, has raised $32 million split between the French Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Fonds Strategique d'Investissement, existing institutional shareholders, Idinvest, Ventech and a pool of new investors including Allianz , global investment banking firm Jeffries, and Middle Eastern private funds. The company said the new investment will allow Viadeo to accelerate its growth in Europe and China, as well as other key emerging markets like Latin America, Russia, India, and Africa.


Viadeo, a professional social network, which focuses on non-English speaking markets, says it is adding one million new members each month.. The company is pursuing an aggressive international development strategy with recent partnerships like the announcement of a joint venture in Russia in the second half of 2011.
In China Viadeo's subsidiary Tianji is adding 500,000 new users per month with a total member base of 10 million In addition to Russian and Mandarin, Viadeo is available in six languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.