History
Arnon Dinur and Eyal Hertzog, two Israeli-born cousins working in the midst of Silicon Valley, founded Contact Networks (formerly known as NetinTouch) in August 1998 to address the hassles inherent in managing and leveraging a network of personal and professional contacts. Both had worked within the Cisco family – Arnon at Cisco while an MBA student at the University of Texas, and Eyal a recent transplant to the Valley after Class Data Systems was acquired by Cisco. Together, they sought a solution that would help them keep in touch with their personal and vital business contacts by placing rich, dynamic, updated contact information wherever they needed it – a desktop PC, an Internet terminal in the airport, a cell phone or a handheld device. The founders secured their first round of financing within a week of developing the core concept, and quickly began building the company by recruiting a core team in Israel and in Silicon Valley. Top venture capital funding from Accel and Polaris Venture Partners was secured shortly after.