after its launch in 2015<\/a> \u2014 its mobile app gives companies a way to enable and encourage employees to share content on social media.<\/p>\nAccording to the lawsuit, the startup met with HCL\u2019s BEYONDigital unit during the summer of 2016 to discuss a potential acquisition. Eventually, the discussions progressed far enough that CultureSphere was willing to share \u201cthe inner workings of CultureSphere\u2019s proprietary platform,\u201d which\u00a0HCL executives agreed\u00a0to treat as \u201chighly confidential.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit says this information \u201cfar exceeded any other disclosures that CultureSphere made to any other company that expressed interest in a potential acquisition,\u201d and included\u00a0technical and product details, as well as marketing plans.<\/p>\n
The suit goes on to claim that CultureSphere and BEYONDigital agreed on \u201ckey details\u201d at the meeting, including an acquisition price of around $20 million and a closing date of September 15. Afterwards, however, CultureSphere alleges that BEYONDigital executives stopped communicating, and only resumed\u00a0to say that the deal was being delayed due to broader corporate considerations.<\/p>\n
Then they reconsidered: \u201cIn a moment of candor, [HCL executive Anand] Birje explained [via email] that HCL was now exploring whether it could build the same platform itself and any acquisition discussion would have to occur in mid to late October.\u201d (The suit\u00a0describes CultureSphere founder and CEO Danny Gordon as \u201cjustifiably outraged at HCL and BEYONDigital\u2019s actions.\u201d)<\/p>\n
In September, according to the lawsuit, HCL told CultureSphere it would not be going through in the deal. Then\u00a0in November, an HCL executive tweeted about what the CultureSphere team saw as a competing product that would \u201cput HR in the driving seat to transform employee experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleges that HCL \u201ccould not create a platform or application as complex and as sophisticated as CultureSphere from scratch in two months\u201d and that the company \u201cinduced CultureSphere to reveal its confidential and propriety materials and information through false promises of confidentiality and non-use restrictions and the promise of acquisition that, with the benefit of hindsight, HCL and BEYONDigital never intended to honor.\u201d<\/p>\nCultureSphere is seeking unspecified monetary damages and \u201cinjunctive relief\u201d (presumably stopping HCL from releasing its product) in its suit. In a statement provided to TechCrunch, CultureSphere co-founder and CEO Danny Gordon said:<\/p>\n
\nGoing into 2017, there\u2019s not a single enterprise which doesn\u2019t need our technology. I know the industry like the back of my hand and there\u2019s not a single platform that\u2019s gotten the formula right except us. Our one obstacle is scaling fast enough to capture the massive market opportunity. That was the premise for our agreed acquisition with BEYONDigital and HCL \u2014 to put our platform\u2019s proprietary experience into as many companies as possible, giving them unparalleled advantage in reach, data and growth by combining the employee experience and customer experience in one. As a platform offering under a Global 2000 brand, we\u2019d be able to scale 10x faster than as a solo company. HCL is the first and only company we shared the inner workings of our technology with. We haven\u2019t released it anywhere for the exact reason of knowing it must be offered under a global enterprise brand to scale quickly. [BEYONDigital Global Head Jaco Van Eden] was nothing short of excited to integrate and offer our platform to HCL clients and the overall market.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
As for HCL, a spokesperson sent us this statement: \u201cIt is inappropriate for us to comment on pending litigation, however, we believe the allegations in the lawsuit to be totally baseless.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can read the full complaint below.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/wgZ7fC4hnsg\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Acquisition talks fall through all the time, but a new lawsuit from social media startup CultureSphere accuses global IT company HCL of something more serious \u2014 using those talks as <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-2861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
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