CompareNetworks, Inc. Fuels Growth by Raising Round of Financing
CompareNetworks, Inc., a global online B2B media company for the life science and healthcare industries, today announced that it has closed a round of financing from Alta Communications.
| CompareNetworks- Lead Generation Service for B2B http://www.comparenetworks.com |
Biocompare - The Buyer's Guide for Life Scientists http://www.biocompare.com |
| Dentalcompare - The Buyer's Guide for Dental Professionals http://www.dentalcompare.com |
Medcompare - The Buyer's Guide for Medical Professionals http://www.medcompare.com |
| OphthalmologyWeb http://www.ophthalmologyweb.com/ |
Acuity Medical Education http://www.acuitymeded.com/ |
| In2Dental http://www.in2hygiene.com/ |
In2Hygiene http://www.in2hygiene.com/ |
The Creating of CompareNetworks
Clichés exist for a reason and the founding of CompareNetworks can be summed up by a good one—“Necessity is the mother of invention.” While our founders undoubtedly heard Plato’s famous quote in school, they couldn’t absorb its true meaning until they experienced it for themselves when becoming exasperated while conducting AIDS and cancer research at UCSF.
Daunted by the task of having to search through a lab full of catalogs the size of phone books to find the product information they needed for their research, founders Drs. Paul Gatti and Mike Okimoto, together with research associate Andy Miller, knew technology was the answer.
Gatti then approached a college friend who would become the company’s fourth founder, Matt McLean, who was well versed in Web-based industries from his experience with CNET and Cisco Systems.
Soon after their initial meeting, Biocompare, the flagship company of CompareNetworks, was officially launched. In June of 1999, during the heyday of the Dot Com era, the partners started working part-time on their full-time dream after putting in full days with their salaried industry positions. Eventually, each partner quit his respective job and began to dedicate all his time and energy to Biocompare.
The company’s humble beginning started with weekly meetings in McLean’s living room to discuss Biocompare’s service, business model, and marketing. This eventually led to a need for office space and the founders moved to an affordable converted warehouse near SFO. The founders credit the industrial setting, lack of heat and concrete floors for their hunger to grow from the sparse, start-up environment to something bigger and grander. They attribute the rest of their early success to their commitment to having a flexible and dynamic business model that responded to customer feedback.
Initially funded by “friends and family,” Biocompare received its first official funding of $700,000 in September 2000 from Alan Meckler of Meckler Media/Internet.com. The company quickly became profitable in November 2001.
With a drive to continue expanding, despite the economic downturn, Biocompare re-invested its profits in the company by launching Medcompare in October of 2003. Medcompare, which includes a wide variety of content-rich sub specialties, includes Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Clinical Diagnostics, Orthopedics, Urology, Neurology, Aesthetics and General Surgery.
Biocompare continued its explosive growth, which allowed the founders to launch Dentalcompare in May of 2005. The quick and enthusiastic user adoption and industry acceptance of the new vertical has allowed the founders to hire some of the industries biggest names.
With a desire to reflect the breadth of their expanding services, Biocompare, Inc. changed its name to CompareNetworks, Inc. in 2006, leaving the company wide open to explore new vertical marketplaces. When coupling the company’s broader vision with Alta Communications’ 2008 investment of capital, CompareNetworks can continue to develop their platform while giving life to new verticals borne from a wide range of industries’ need for invention.