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The Community

The BlackBerry Partners Fund ^TM is a $150 million venture capital fund focused on applications and services for the BlackBerry® platform and other mobile platforms including mobile commerce (payments, advertising, retailing and banking), vertical and horizontal enterprise applications, communications, social networking, location-based applications and services (navigation and mapping), media and entertainment, and lifestyle and personal productivity applications. The Fund considers all stages of development and is co-managed by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners.

The Challenges

The BlackBerry Partners Fund had two primary requirements:

1. Create a publicly accessible website to promote the fund on a global scale to potential partners building applications for  the world leading BlackBerry® device developed by RIM; and to
2. Set up a private online community for the investment committee to coordinate, manage and collaborate on potential partner funding applications and competitions.

The Solution

The BlackBerry Partners Fund follows the investor model which requires submissions to be subjected to a rigorous due diligence process to assess an application's or services' commercial viability.

The BlackBerry Partners Fund uses an online community to manage all aspects of its multi-phased "stage and gate" process of due diligence and decision making. An IGLOO online community provides a comprehensive solution by delivering an integrated suite of content management, collaboration and Web 2.0 social networking tools-allowing for the secure storing, management and retrieval of materials before Fund committee meetings and supporting the collaborative processes that take place in between  meetings.

Portions of the community are also available as a public website to promote the fund to potential subscribers and applicants for funding. Entrepreneurs make an initial application which is submitted to the online community where it is securely stored and then evaluated by the BlackBerry Partners Fund investment committee. An online community supports this structure with portions of the community open to public access and other areas restricted to permissioned access only.

The due diligence process for funding is very thorough and can take months to complete. Using an online community to securely manage its due diligence process, the BlackBerry Partners Fund is able to select technologies with the greatest potential for success. As a result, these technologies are significantly less risky in the eyes of investors, whose support is essential for reaching the market.