Business Growth Fund portfolio business Workshare has acquired IdeaPlane, a social network built for highly regulated industries.

Workshare has bought IdeaPlane two months after it was itself acquired by SkyDox following an investment from the Business Growth Fund (BGF).

Back in September, BGF invested £7.25 million of growth capital into SkyDox, alongside Scottish Equity Partners, management and other employee shareholders as part of a £20 million transaction. The deal allowed SkyDox to purchase Workshare.

The £20 million of capital was to be put to work by seeing London-based SkyDox and Workshare launch what it described as the ‘first policy-based document collaboration platform’, under the Workshare brand. The collaboration will allow business users to work across mobile, tablet and desktop devices over the cloud, according to a statement.

Workshare has now bought IdeaPlane to enhance its platform with ‘robust social networking features’ such as status updates, the promotion of important events, news and email notifications.

Anthony Foy, CEO of Workshare, comments, ‘Our combined platform will allow organisations to monitor, manage and closely control the social network being used within their organisations while facilitating collaboration and the exchange of information and ideas.’

IdeaPlane CEO and founder James Fabricant says that the acquisition make ‘strategic’ sense for both companies considering the companies’ focus on customers who place security, compliance and control as high up.

He adds, ‘We have a shred vision for the application of social tools in the enterprise and we have platforms that can be integrated into one unified solution to realise that vision.’