Academia.edu raises funds to build a Facebook for scientists

CNet
The startup hopes to overhaul how researchers publish papers, making them freely available to all and substituting social-network success for the traditional peer-review process that scientific journals use today to ensure quality.
Academia.edu, an Internet startup trying to bring the social dynamics of LinkedIn and Facebook to researchers’ professional communiciations, has raised $11.1 million in a second round of funding.
The company’s mission, to overhaul not just how researchers publish results but also how they judge the quality of each others’ work, won over Khosla Ventures for the Series B funding. It led the round, and earlier investors Spark Capital and True Ventures participated, the company said Thursday. Ben Ling of Khosla Ventures will join Academia’s board of directors, and Vinod Khosla will become an advisor.
“The goal is to have every single science PDF ever written available for free on the Internet and to build a network of scientists interacting with those papers that will change the face of peer review,” the company said of its mission. It’s published 1.6 million papers so far.

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