Lynk Expert Network
Lynk is a Southeast Asia-founded expert network with 840K+ experts, offering interviews, private advisor communities, and an aggregator platform.
About Lynk Expert Network
The Lynk Global expert network was founded in Singapore in 2015 as The Straits Network. The founder has a background in private equity and worked at Silver Lake during its $200m investment in GLG.
Lynk Global was a mid-sized expert network, serving clients also beyond Southeast Asia, but was struck badly by the weaker market in 2022. Experts and employees complained about late payments of honoraria and salaries. According to some estimates, Lynk had around 100 employees in June 2020, working across 8 offices located in Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, Mumbai, Shanghai, Hyderabad, Manila, and Toronto. As of June 2020, Lynk Global had a database of 840 000+ experts, one of the larger databases globally alongside GLG and Guidepoint. The company has at times struggled with retaining employees and saw major layoffs during 2022. In addition, senior leaders departed in the winter of 2022-23, including the CCO, CFO, and SVPs across product, sales, and marketing.
Lynk - timeline and notable events
2015 - Founded in Singapore as The Straits Network
2015 - Raised $1m from Wavemaker Partners.
April 2017 - Raised a $4 million Series A from Hong Leong Financial Group, Hong Kong’s Cyberport, construction and engineering company Zhuhai Da Heng Qin (DHQ), and CRE Venture Capital.
2019 - Raised $1m led by MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia (MMV SEA), with participation from Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund and Wavemaker Partners.
January 2021 - Raised $24m in a Series B round from Brewer Lane Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, with participation from Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund.
June 2021 - Rumored to be planning a Series C round of more than $30m, according to Mergermarket. As of February 2023, such a funding round has yet to be announced.
September 2021 - Raised $5m from UBS, in a bid to cross-sell UBS analysts as experts on Lynk - similar to a 2019 deal between Macquarie Bank and Deepbench, which was also an investment and access to bank analysts in exchange for access to tech.
2022 - Struck badly by the weaker market; saw major layoffs and struggled with employee retention
Summer 2022 - Launched Lynk Circles (first announced as "coming soon" back in June 2020)
Winter 2022-23 - Senior leaders departed, including the CCO, CFO, and SVPs across product, sales, and marketing.
February 2023 - Launched Lynk Infinity, an expert network aggregator (also first announced in June 2020).
Lynk service offering
Lynk offers three services:
Lynk Answers - a classic expert network service (interviews, surveys and in-person meetings).
Lynk Circles - a platform similar to those offered by Zapnito and Arbolus (and originally also by Deepbench), to help clients organize their own advisor networks. This was posted as "coming soon" since June 2020, and was eventually launched in the summer of 2022.
Lynk Infinity - said to be an expert network aggregator, similar to the one offered by Inex One.
With the launch of Infinity, Lynk joined proSapient as an expert network, also offering an expert network workflow solution. Mosaic Research and Coleman Research both previously offered aggregators, but discontinued the service. At the time, people in the industry said it had been difficult to focus on the two business areas at once, as they were not fully synergistic.
At Inex One, we're intrigued by this move and curious to see how it plays out. We firmly believe that expert networks and clients need better tech workflows, but we are curious to see if any expert network will agree to be aggregated by their competitor 🙃. The jury is out.
In the meantime, see for yourself how 500+ clients work with 30+ expert networks on Inex One.
FAQ
What does Lynk specialize in? Lynk specializes in three services: Lynk Answers (classic expert consultations, interviews, and surveys), Lynk Circles (private advisor community management), and Lynk Infinity (an expert network aggregator).
Is Lynk available on Inex One? No - Lynk is not part of the Inex One marketplace.
