Cisco Exec Jumps To CEO Role At Topsy Labs

Described as "real-time search for the social web," Topsy offers a searchable index platform for social networking updates like Twitter and Google+, using algorithms to calculate and organize relevant search results drawn from links, posts, keywords and various other metrics.

Based in San Francisco and founded in 2006, Topsy copped a $15 million round of Series C funding in March 2011, and is backed by BlueRun Ventures, Western Technology Invstments, Ignition Partners, Founders Fund and investor Scott Banister.

Greatwood went to Cisco following Cisco's $220 million acquisition of PostPath in 2008. Greatwood was PostPath's founder and CEO.

At the time, PostPath was a specialist in e-mail and calendaring software as an alternative to Microsoft Exchange, and Cisco brought its products into what became the ill-fated Cisco Mail, a hosted e-mail product that offered native Outlook support, AJAX Web 2.0 access and support for mobile devices.

At Topsy Labs, Greatwood succeeds co-founder and former CEO Vipul Ved Prakash, who is now the company's chief technology officer. Earlier in his career, he served various executive positions at Virata and Madge Networks.

"Topsy's ability to index and extract intelligence in realtime from the social web at a massive scale is unparalleled and makes Topsy one of the most exciting and important technology companies in the industry today," Greatwood said in a statement Tuesday. "I look forward to helping Topsy capitalize on the huge market opportunities for its platform and expand its business."

Greatwood joins the legion of former Cisco executives that have departed the company this year amid its ongoing corporate restructuring.