History
The word "Ning" is Chinese for "peace" (simplified Chinese: 宁; traditional Chinese: 寧; pinyin: níng), as explained by Gina Bianchini on the company blog. Ning started development in October 2004 and launched its platform publicly in October 2005. Ning was initially funded internally by Bianchini, Andreessen and angel investors. In July 2007, Ning raised US$44 million in venture capital, led by Legg Mason. In March 2008, the company also announced it had raised an additional US$60 million in capital, led by an undisclosed set of investors. In its most recent round of funding in July 2009, the company raised US$15 million in capital, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
On April 15, 2010, CEO Jason Rosenthal announced changes at Ning. The free service would be suspended and of the current 167 employees, only 98 would remain. Current users of the free service had the option to either upgrade to a paid account or transition their content from Ning.
Ning is currently located in downtown Palo Alto, California and its headquarters are in Facebook's old office space.
Read more about this topic: Ning (website)
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