Goldman Sachs Spinoff Louisa Expands Availability of Corporate Networking Platform

A social media platform for employees that is used by Goldman Sachs is becoming more widely available.

The artificial intelligence (AI)-powered networking platform called Louisa was funded and owned by the investment bank before going independent a few weeks ago, CNBC reported Friday (May 12).

Louisa uses companies’ databases to automatically create user profiles for employees, takes information from newsfeeds to connect people who have similar interests and is meant to help employees network at a time when many are working remotely, according to the report.

“Think of Louisa as an AI-powered LinkedIn on steroids,” Louisa founder and CEO Rohan Doctor told CNBC. “We have smart profiles and a smart network, and Louisa reads millions of articles a week from 250 providers and begins connecting people.”

The newly independent Louisa is now reaching out to select professional services firms to sign them up as clients, has already added a commercial bank and a venture capital fund, and currently has 20,000 monthly active users. Goldman Sachs, which has used the platform for two-and-a-half years, continues to use it, according to the report.

Louisa announced in an April post on LinkedIn that it had spun out of Goldman Sachs and become an independent company, describing itself as a “revenue enablement platform that uses AI to connect people so they can collaborate on client deals.”

Noting the rise of AI and ChatGPT, the company said in another April post on LinkedIn that “Louisa can help companies unleash something even more powerful: the collaborative intelligence of your people.”

The startup was incubated as part of the inaugural class of Goldman Sachs’ GS Accelerate, a platform that supports employees who want to develop new businesses and products for its clients. It was launched in 2018 and funded in 2019, according to a Goldman Sachs case study.

By enabling Goldman Sachs employees to pitch their bosses on potential new companies, GS Accelerate uses the power of crowdsourcing in hopes of finding and making big money from the next hot startup.

Its inaugural effort drew 500 submissions and resulted in five winning funding from Goldman Sachs, CNBC reported in 2019.