ShowClix founders Lynsie Camuso and Joshua Dziabiak

The new release offers venues, promoters and event organizers more than 100 new features, an integrated partnership with Groupon and deeper connections with social media websites Facebook, Twitter and Disqus.

The partnership with Groupon makes ShowClix the only ticketing company to integrate the group discounting service into a full-service event ticketing solution. The integration gives users the ability to seamlessly apply for, manage, track and run reports on their Groupon offers—all from their ShowClix ticket seller management console. ShowClix clients can now easily engage Groupon’s collective buying power to reach a targeted, savvy audience of active event goers looking for new ways to enjoy their city.

“Groupon, Facebook and Twitter are powerful selling tools for event promoters,” explains ShowClix CEO Joshua Dziabiak. “By introducing these new features and seamless integrations, we’re providing our clients with increased exposure for their events, new customers, word-of-mouth promotion, and measurable marketing tools that will help them move more tickets in more ways than ever before.”

The new ShowClix release comes on the heels of the company experiencing over 650% growth in ticket sales and over 275% growth in new clients in 2010.

The company’s increased integration with Facebook and Twitter gives venues, promoters and event organizers the ability to easily share information about their events, promotions and discount codes on the social media websites, directly from their ShowClix ticket seller management console. The social media tools also make it easy for people viewing ticketing pages to tweet about, share with and promote events to their friends, followers and fans on Twitter, Facebook and through Disqus.

ShowClix is a former client of the Ben Franklin Technology Partners Innovation Works (BFTP/IW). BFTP/IW has invested $350,000 in ShowClix and has provided significant business assistance such as human resources assistance, market strategy, operations, and fundraising.

Additional features in ShowClix’s Spring 2011 release include advanced user permission settings; recurring event and timed ticketing support for museums, exhibitions and attractions; an integrated email marketing system; and support for third party merchant accounts and multiple currencies.

ShowClix Introduces New Event Ticketing System Improvements

Keith Fitzgerald, TicketLeap

“I decided to join a startup simply for the adventure,” he says. “Working at an established company, I felt like I was watching the game instead of being on the field. I am passionate about technology and building quality products so when the opportunity came up to apply those skills in a new company environment, I jumped.”

TicketLeap is a fast-growing full-service ticketing software and event management solution. Fitzgerald joined the company in September 2009 and, facing software limitations, immediately began testing the idea of redesigning the TicketLeap platform from the ground up.

“Once we discussed it, we decided to build an entirely new platform,” says Fitzgerald. “It’s a testament to the commitment and full support of our management team that we were able to do this.”

Support Far Beyond the Initial Investment

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA invested a total of $500,000 in TicketLeap from 2008 and 2009. TicketLeap has attracted more than $4.5M in total investments.

Ben Franklin and MentorTech Ventures (a University City-based venture firm that specializes in investing in companies with connections to the University of Pennsylvania) led TicketLeap’s first round of investments. TicketLeap’s other investors include three groups of wealthy individuals called angels—Delaware Crossing Investor Group, the Mid-Atlantic Angel Group and Robin Hood Ventures; NextStage Capital, a venture-capital firm based in Audubon, Pa.; and singer John Legend.

“Ben Franklin acts as an observer to the board at TicketLeap,” said Fitzgerald. “They have been amazing supporters of TicketLeap and continue to be instrumental in our growth.” Over the years, Ben Franklin has provided business development, management and website design support. In fact, Ben Franklin has used TicketLeap to handle tickets for several of its own events.

Reinventing the Concept

A leader in online ticketing and event registration for the past few years, TicketLeap has developed a revolutionary new platform that is social, quick and intuitive. The platform is deeply integrated with Facebook and Twitter, making it easier than ever for event organizers to sell tickets online and market their events. For select small events, the new platform is free.

TicketLeap is now the fastest-growing ticketing company in the U.S. for small-to-midsize events, helping thousands of event organizers increase their sales and simplify their ticketing.

“Working at TicketLeap has confirmed beliefs I’ve held true for a number of years. One, you’re only as good as your team. Two, a great team is often made of less instead of more.”—Keith Fitzgerald, TicketLeap

Fitzgerald has become familiar with the startup community in Philadelphia, much of it fostered by Ben Franklin. “Things can change on a day-to-day basis here. Established companies can be infuriatingly slow when it comes to turning ideas into implementation. But at a startup there’s no speed limit,” he says.

“I’ve also confirmed beliefs I’ve held true for a number of years. One, you’re only as good as your team. Two, a great team is often made of less instead of more. A swat team of incredibly talented individuals is more agile and can ship great products in a short amount of time.”

A History of Steady Growth

TicketLeap had two employees at its start, seven in 2007 and 25 today. The company’s founding principles—to bring cutting-edge ticketing to even the smallest events, and to treat every event organizer as if they were the most important client—guide the organization still. TicketLeap’s service-oriented attitude is what sets it apart.

TicketLeap is free to use for event organizers selling fewer than 100 tickets per month. The company makes money by adding charges, typically of $1 to $2, to the tickets sold using its systems, and charging fees of about four percent on tickets bought with a credit card. Most of its customers pass on these charges to their ticket buyers, but TicketLeap can take the charges out of its customers’ ticket sales as well.

TicketLeap has expanded its client base and its offerings since the beginning. TicketLeap still primarily services organizers of small to midsize events, but some of the customers have used it to sell tickets to events attended by over 20,000 people. Instead of just enabling TicketLeap customers to sell tickets to their events online, it helps them manage the entire ticket-selling process. Last year, the company launched TicketLeap Anywhere, which enables event organizers to use their computers to sell tickets at their events as long as they can access the Internet.

In the end, Fitzgerald finds working at TicketLeap fulfilling both professionally and personally. “In the past year, I’ve matured by an order of magnitude. A single year in a startup environment is equivalent to ten in a corporate environment.”

Shoefitr founders Breck Fresen, Nick End and Matt Wilkinson

Each city participating in the contest selected their community’s best entry to make their business case on the live broadcast. In Pittsburgh, several pitches were presented before the show’s live podcast began, and Shoefitr was selected as the Pittsburgh representative. Shoefitr, a BFTP/IW company, competed against technology companies in London, Paris, Madrid and other cities around the globe, as well as huge tech centers in the US such as San Diego and Los Angeles.

At the end of the show, This Week In Startups hosts (based in Silicon Valley) and participants in the chat room selected Shoefitr as the winner of the international pitch contest. You can see their pitch and the great comments from the moderators giving them the win at AlphaLab’s blog.

Though Shoefitr won the pitch competition, the other winner in this event was fellow AlphaLab company Deviceknit, whose founder, John Ganotis, organized Pittsburgh’s participation. Pittsburgh had the largest contingent of entrepreneurs for the global meetup and, according to the two moderators, “Pittsburgh has got this one right. Invest in these startups and give people the reason to stay.”

Health Market Science built and maintains an extensive database of more than four million health care providers, a million organizations and the affiliations among them.

Health Market Science (HMS) uses multiple innovative approaches to build and maintain an extensive database of more than four million health care providers, a million organizations and the affiliations among them. The King of Prussia-based company offers targeting information, master data management solutions and advanced analytics to various customers in the health care system. It specializes in providing compliance solutions across the health care system, helping its clients adhere to the federal and state laws as well as products that make the U.S. health care system more efficient, a much-publicized goal of the current administration.

Today, HMS has contracts with each of the top 20 U.S. pharmaceutical companies, 10 of the top 15 medical device companies, three of the top four pharmacy benefit managers, three of the top five managed health care providers, and 40 percent of all pharmacy stores.

The company’s revenue growth has averaged more than 30 percent each year, and it recently expanded into a 45,000-square-foot facility. HMS, which employs more than 140 people, was also ranked 17^th in the Deloitte Fast 50 in 2008 for the Greater Philadelphia region and has placed in the Inc. 5000 for each of the past five years.

Help at a Critical Stage

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/SEP) was introduced to Health Market Science in 2001, when the company had only 13 employees. By 2003, BFTP/SEP had invested $500,000 in the company and helped it develop management and technology options. Half of the investment went to expanding its sourcing technology and the remainder to incorporating the technology into the overall data integration and consolidation system.

“When Ben Franklin Technology Partners invested in us, it was a great time for us to be working together,” says Matt Reichert, CEO. “We were at a critical stage of growth, on the cusp of attracting more and more clients, and BFTP really helped us along the way. We would not be at this point today without them.”

The Push for Innovation

Recently, Health Market Science continued its innovation with the launch of CompleteView, their highly anticipated product for the master data management market. CompleteView is the only full-service offering available for complete customer master data management. It delivers the people, processes, software and governance necessary to build and maintain a client’s Golden Record for each practitioner, organization and the affiliations among them. Customers benefit from little to no overhead in maintaining their customer master.

In 2008, HMS repaid BFTP’s investment out of a $42 million recapitalization led by the Edison Venture Fund, which has been investing in technology companies serving the health care industry for more than 20 years. The recapitalization assisted in the research and development and commercialization of compliance. Edison followed this recapitalization with an additional investment in April of 2009, with a focus on developing the health care efficiency solutions demanded in today’s marketplace.

“We have launched seven new products in the past 18 months and are continuing to expand into the various market segments in health care,” adds Reichert. “We are increasing our customer base and always growing. We appreciate BFTP’s involvement with us. They have provided us with the tools to drive innovation with our business, which we will keep doing.”

In 2006, Eric Koger and Susan Gregg Koger started ModCloth, a web-based vintage clothing retailer, using leading-edge social-networking techniques to market the company and build a community of dedicated customers. Today, the company employs 30 in the Pittsburgh area.

Judging from the current economic meltdown, where icons of economic stability are falling left and right, “business as usual” just isn’t cutting it anymore. ModCloth, a web-based vintage clothing retailer, knows this-and it’s thriving because the company embraces change.

“We are bringing new technology to an old industry,” says CEO Eric Koger from his Pittsburgh office. “There has never been an easier time to reach customers. We have tools at our disposal that didn’t exist 10 years ago.”

ModCloth started as an obsession of his then-girlfriend Susan Gregg Koger, who is now his wife and business partner. After gaining some initial traction while she was obtaining her undergraduate degree at Carnegie Mellon University, the business became a full-time pursuit in 2006. The two built a team of employees, most of whom are members of the company’s customer demographic. In fact, more than 60 percent of ModCloth’s 30 full-timers fit the company’s target demographic—the fashion-conscious young female who views unique clothing as a way to distinguish herself.

“We have an intimate understanding of who she is, where she is, what she likes and how she’ll be driven to action,” Koger says.

Investing in New Technology

Koger knew that in order to succeed, his technology platform had to be leading edge. Marketing efforts needed to have laser-sharp focus and embrace social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google and popular style and fashion blogs.

“We go well beyond e-marketing,” he says. “Our approach enables us to zero in on the key demographic, understand where she is online, capture a 360 degree view of her interests and connect on as many fronts as possible.”

Building a business based on leading-edge technology requires serious startup capital, so the company turned to Innovation Works, the Ben Franklin Technology Partner (BFTP) of Southwestern PA. In May 2008, BFTP invested $100,000 n ModCloth, seeing serious potential in the forward-thinking company’s business model and technology focus.

“BFTP’s assistance has been invaluable,” says Koger. “The funds helped us scale the team, build up inventory and fund our proprietary e-commerce platform. But the value went way beyond the dollars. They opened a lot of doors for us, helped hone our pitch for angel investors and gave us invaluable credibility.” Koger also credits BFTP with helping them identify solid resources critical to their growth, including guidance on insurance and HR best practices.

Striking a Chord with Customers

The response has been overwhelmingly positive. While most retailers showed a slump in sales last year, ModCloth saw 600 percent growth. December was the company’s most successful month ever, with more than a million people shopping on the site.

Marketing through social networking sites like Facebook is no secret, but it is challenging. “Getting these women to leave the site they are on is the biggest hurdle, but we’ve become very good at it by tapping into their social community orientation.” ModCloth creates its own sense of community by enabling customers to be contributors to the site. For example, over the holidays, customers were asked on a daily basis to give names to different products with the opportunity to win the products.

“We received thousands of submissions,” Koger says. “We’ve created an experience where our customers are in the driver’s seat for how we merchandise products, and that resonates extremely well with our target audience.”

Providing a Feeling of Ownership

Soon ModCloth members will get to suggest and vote on new clothing and accessories that the site should carry. Those who vote consistently in line with the community consensus will earn status in the community and may be asked to contribute features, blogs or other input.

“We are creating a total social experience on our site by taking customer focus to the extreme, where they are both producing the site and consuming the product,” says Koger. “Our customers feel it’s ‘their’ store.”

Koger credits the team, the technology and repeat customers with the company’s success in 2008. “We also had a number of new marketing initiatives hit. The largest was a Facebook campaign, which accounted for about 20 percent of our growth. We’ll continue to take the concept of the niche online community to the next level as a key driver of our business.”

Infinera develops the optical networking systems that are essentially the “circulatory system” for the Internet, carrying data from point to point around the United States and the world.

One of the leading manufacturers of these optical networking systems is Infinera, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, with offices around the world, including Allentown, PA. “All Internet traffic rides over fiber optics systems,” says Jeff Ferry, senior director of communications at Infinera. “Our customers include Level 3 Communications, XO Communications and Cox Communications-companies that carry a significant portion of the world’s Internet traffic. These big players have all chosen Infinera as their system of choice.”

A Crucial Communications Node

One of Infinera’s initial investors was Ben Franklin Technology Partners (BFTP). BFTP invested $150,000 for three years, for a total of $450,000, which went toward crucial development efforts. “But they provided much more than just money,” says Mike Reffle, vice president of modules at Infinera in Allentown, PA. “Our BFTP contact, Al Philpotts, was like a communications node. He plugged us into all kinds of expertise across the Lehigh Valley and Pennsylvania.”

For example, with the help of BFTP, Infinera utilized the Center for Optical Technologies at Lehigh University for a number of studies, including an extensive investigation of their next-generation technology. “There were times in early development when we would have a failure of an initial part,” Reffle recalls. “The folks at BFTP would drop everything and get some brains together to assist us in determining root causes and corrective actions.”

A Different Kind of Internet Technology

2007 was a great year for Infinera, and Ferry says the company is excited about its present position in the optical networking market. “It’s a $15 billion industry, and we’re the most highly differentiated new entrant into this market in many years,” he says. “We are number one in shipping long-haul optical networking systems in the North American market, and number four globally.”

Infinera’s success is remarkable because they have grown so quickly-from zero revenue in 2000 to $309 million in sales in 2007. In addition, Infinera raised $320 million dollars in venture capital between 2001 and 2006 to build their technology.

“When this company was founded in 2001, the telecom industry was contracting and declining rapidly,” says Ferry. “Many people were surprised that we were able to raise the money; we are very grateful to our backers for supporting us through that downturn.” The company started with three founders in 2001 and is now 800 employees strong.

According to Ferry, Infinera’s novel thinking is at the root of its success. “Our technology is different from everybody else’s. We came into this market with a radically new solution based on PICs [photonic integrated circuits] that combine 60 optical devices on a pair of chips,” Ferry says. “Nobody had ever succeeded in integrating dozens of optical devices on a single chip and producing those chips commercially.” For Infinera’s customers, this means more Internet capabilities in a smaller space for a cheaper price.

Infinite Internet Possibilities

Like the Internet itself, the possibilities at Infinera seem infinite at this point. “We announced in February that our next generation of PICs will go from 100 gigabits on a pair of chips to 400 gigabits-a fourfold increase,” Ferry says. “In fact, we expect to double the capacity of our chips every three years.”

Ferry adds that these constant advancements are critical if the Internet is to continue to scale with the kind of growth we have seen in recent years, especially on the video front. “We have seen the rise of user-generated video,” he says, “and television channels are beginning to use the Internet more aggressively to broadcast. Photonic integration is the only technology that can enable the fiber optic network to scale to accommodate Internet growth, and Infinera is the recognized leader in photonic integration.”

Vivisimo develops innovative search software that clusters results according to topics rather than merely returning a long list of unfiltered hits. Shown here: Jerome Pesenti, Raul Valdes-Perez and Christopher Palmer.

Vivisimo is the developer of innovative search software that clusters results according to topics rather than merely returning a long list of unfiltered hits. Vivisimo focused on the web during the company’s early days. (The company’s Clusty search engine is available for anyone to use at www.clusty.com.) But with the rise of the Google monolith, in the past few years, Vivisimo has focused squarely on becoming an enterprise search solution for corporate, government and academic use, helping employees, students and faculty navigate and organize enormous amounts of information.

“Most of our revenue comes from internal corporate search applications,” says Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO and co-founder of Vivisimo. “But we also power citizen-facing search portals at government sites like USA.gov, NLM.gov, MedlinePlus.gov, Gov.nz and others.”

Making Searches Fast and Secure

Vivisimo’s mission is to help organizations find, organize and use the huge amounts of information available on the Internet today. Vivisimo’s software and knowledge of the consumer search process in turn helps improve business processes and workforce productivity, as well as raise customer satisfaction and increase sales.

Clearly, the company’s model is working. Valdes Perez was named 2007 E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, and Vivisimo’s products won Infoworld’s 2007 award for “Best Enterprise Search” for the third consecutive year-beating out companies like Google.

According to Valdes-Perez, Vivisimo’s strength lies in the rapid deployment of a business search engine that enables searches across a wide variety of internal information repositories, as well as their ability to handle security correctly. “These things have been a challenge in the enterprise search area for a long time,” he says.

Searching for Ben Franklin

Recently, Vivisimo cooperated with the National Science Foundation (NSF) on a special Ben Franklin web portal in honor of Franklin’s 300th birthday (ben.clusty.com). The portal is a comprehensive one-stop site containing Franklin’s own writings and a selectively curated collection of tens of thousands of web pages related to him. Two years after it was launched, Valdes-Perez says the Ben Franklin site is still getting a lot of traffic.

Why focus on Poor Richard himself? One of the reasons Vivisimo decided to partner with the NSF on ben.clusty.com is that Vivisimo got its start thanks to both the NSF and Ben Franklin Technology Partners. “The company started in June 2000 as a spinout from the Carnegie Mellon University computer science department, launched by a $100,000 investment from Innovation Works,” the southwestern PA office of BFTP, says Valdes-Perez. BFTP has invested a total of $500,000 in Vivisimo.

Beyond their important financial investment, however, Innovation Works also sponsored MBA internships that helped the company with early hiring, and they have also regularly offered advice on hiring, company strategy and potential fundraising opportunities. “In addition, they provided matching funds for small business innovation research grants we obtained from the NSF,” Valdes-Perez says. “Without Ben Franklin’s support of us coming out of Carnegie Mellon, we likely would not have started the company at all,” he says.

Valdes-Perez adds that Ben Franklin’s investment in Vivisimo has also benefited the surrounding Pittsburgh area. “We have provided many returns to the region that far surpass the original investment, and we look forward to larger returns in the future,” he says.

Vivisimo, which is nearly 100 employees strong, is currently focused on solving a very important problem: enterprise-wide search across multiple repositories where a corporation stores its content. “The first company to nail this will achieve great results,” Valdes-Perez says. “So far, we have proven that we are the best at serving this need.”

Since FORE Systems was acquired by Marconi, it has spun off a number of new technology companies, employing hundreds of people and raising hundreds of millions in venture capital. One of the most recent successes, Spinnaker Networks, was sold to Network Appliance for $300 million. Spinnaker was founded by former FORE employee Ron Bianchini (above).

FORE Systems, now part of Ericsson, was a technology company that began as a small startup in the Squirrel Hill area, and the effect of its success can still be felt in the region. The company put Pittsburgh on the radar screens of investors, talent and international media, and it has become a legend for what can grow from an idea when the right people and organizations take a chance on it.

FORE received its first local investments totaling $145,294 from the Ben Franklin Technology Center (the precursor to Innovation Works) for further development of its high-speed ATM switch and network interface. “This enabled us to bring on the engineering talent to develop the prototype,” says Eric Cooper, FORE Systems’ co-founder. “The Ben Franklin model for investing is important for helping early-stage companies get started because it isn’t constrained by the same ROI expectations that a venture fund would have,” he says.

A Highly Successful IPO

By late 1992, FORE completed its first round of venture capital financing of $5 million with a market valuation of $15 million. From there, it grew into one of the most successful IPOs of the time and was eventually acquired by Marconi (which in turn was bought by Ericsson in 2005).

The Marconi acquisition didn’t stop FORE’s ripple effect, however. Since it was acquired, FORE has spun off a number of new technology companies, employing hundreds of people and raising hundreds of millions in venture capital. One of the most recent successes, former FORE employee Ron Bianchini’s company, Spinnaker Networks, was sold to Network Appliance for $300 million.

Bianchini is just one example. FORE has repeatedly impacted the Pittsburgh region through the number of seasoned entrepreneurs it brought to the area. Many former FORE entrepreneurs have channeled the passion they felt for FORE into starting new companies, advising others and teaching students about starting a business.

And these FORE alumni have enriched the area with their generous donations to the arts, education and other nonprofits; FORE’s founders, for example, endowed a $15 million chair in computer science at Carnegie Mellon.

An Impact Felt Far and Wide

In addition to making history with its own success, FORE also created a cushion for fellow startups in the Pittsburgh region. A new group of millionaires emerged after the Marconi acquisition who have invested in venture funds and made angel investments in other local early-stage companies. And existing established organizations have reaped benefits as FORE’s success brought recognition and credibility to the area and made recruitment a little easier, particularly in the technology community.

Cooper says the successful growth of FORE Systems-and the lasting positive effects the company has had on the Pittsburgh area-is due in part to the initial investment from IW. “It’s a big challenge early on getting someone to take that risk,” he says. “Investments from an organization like IW are critical because they (IW) are not beholden to limited partners, and they can focus on this geographic region.”

FORE Systems’ story illustrates that IW and other Ben Franklin investments do not just help nurture startup companies in their early days; the impact of these investments of money, time, and resources can be felt far and wide. FORE Systems has touched the Pittsburgh technology industry for the past 25 years, and the company’s legacy will surely live on for many years to come.

SalvageDirect sells total-loss vehicles strictly online, working with insurance companies from the time of the accident, when a car is deemed a total loss, through the final internet sale.

“Before SalvageDirect got started, total loss and salvage was a piece of the car insurance business that no one was really looking at; everyone was focused on the repair process,” says Bob Joyce, president and CEO of SalvageDirect. “Insurance companies would sell total loss vehicles at a local auction and take whatever they could get.”

Joyce saw an opportunity to market the vehicles better to licensed dealers and dismantlers who buy total-loss vehicles for salvage. He discovered that there were buyers all over the nation and the world who would be interested if they knew about a particular vehicle.

Successfully Serving a Niche Market

Part of SalvageDirect’s success is due to its niche market. The company is one of only two that sells total-loss vehicles strictly online. They work with insurance companies from the time of the accident, when a car is deemed a total loss, through the final internet sale.

“We market the cars through an online auction,” says Joyce. “We have a base of worldwide buyers who bid on them. Once the cars are sold, we handle the transaction with the buyer, help with transportation and then settle with the insurance company.”

SalvageDirect’s buyers consist of licensed automotive dealers and dismantlers. Ironically, according to Joyce, the majority of people who buy the cars strip off all the good parts and sell them back to insurance companies-to repair the vehicles they chose to repair instead of total.

Prepared for Steady Growth

By 2005, SalvageDirect’s total sales were in excess of $15 million, and the gross annual payroll had increased to nearly $3 million. From 2005 to 2006, sales grew to $17.4 million. Today the company has more than 100 employees and is more successful than ever.

SalvageDirect, which recently opened a new facility in Hazleton, PA, joined forces with Ben Franklin Technology Partners in 1999. Since then Ben Franklin has invested $500,000 in the company. But beyond this critical funding, says Joyce, Ben Franklin also helped with marketing, accounting and human resources processes.

“Basically, they helped us get set up and prepared to grow,” he says. “We were at the point where we couldn’t get any more bank financing, but we weren’t big enough for equity loans, so Ben Franklin gave us a nice bridge. Plus, they introduced us to some venture capitalists who ultimately invested in the company.”

The Importance of Customer Service

Beyond the uniqueness and comprehensiveness of its business, SalvageDirect pays a lot of attention to customer service. “Because many SalvageDirect employees used to work in the insurance business, we recognize the pains they go through and have been able to build and design our systems to help them through those challenges,” says Joyce.

In the future, Joyce says he sees SalvageDirect continuing to grow and evolve. “We have to constantly look at different technologies and processes to make sure we are doing what’s best not only for the insurance companies, but also for our buyers,” he says. “This industry is difficult to jump into and grab significant market share; you have to perform and earn a good reputation because whenever you mix insurance and salvage and auctions together, there are a lot of different things that can happen. You have to build credibility and show that you can do business with integrity.”

Vivisimo launched a comprehensive one-stop web portal for searching Franklin’s own writings and a selectively curated collection of tens of thousands of web pages related solely to him.

Located at ben.clusty.com, the new tool is a comprehensive one-stop site for searching Franklin’s own writings and a selectively curated collection of tens of thousands of web pages related to him. Befitting Franklin’s leadership in establishing the country’s first public library, the site is free and accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

“Vivisimo got its start thanks to the National Science Foundation and Pennsylvania’s own Ben Franklin Technology Partners. We have a duty to give back,” says Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO and co-founder of Pittsburgh-based Vivisimo.

The Value of “Clustered” Searches

According to Perez, Franklin’s tercentenary provides Vivisimo with a chance to showcase “Clusty,” the company’s new search technology, which offers a unique take on the traditional search engine that even Internet powerhouse Google does not feature. Clusty organizes search results into folders grouping similar items together.

For example, a search of the word “liberty” organizes the top 250 to 500 results from both literary sources about Franklin and his own writings in folders on the left of the screen. These folders, on topics such as “Philadelphia,” “Liberty Bell” and “Autobiography,” help visitors focus on areas of interest and can be expanded to view additional subtopics.

The Ben Franklin portal also offers a comprehensive collection of Franklin’s proverbs and writings that are available on the web in addition to a unique “Educator Resources” tab, which offers a hand-selected group of resources designed to help teachers plan science, history and civic lessons for students at every grade level.

Vivisimo’s development work began at Carnegie Mellon University, an institution with a legacy of significant contributions to web search tools, starting with the creation of Lycos as a university spin-out in the ’80s.

The company was supported over many years by the National Science Foundation. In addition, Vivisimo received a total of $500,000 from BFTP between July 2000 and April 2002. “This is the only outside money the company sought to get off the ground,” says BFTP marketing director Terri Glueck.

Entering the Mainstream Search World

Currently, Fortune 500 businesses, government agencies, academia and millions of searchers use Vivisimo’s clustering technology to better organize and navigate massive amounts of information.

“Vivisimo immediately went after blue-chip clients such as Johnson & Johnson, and they got off the ground quickly,” Glueck says. “Today they are profitable. They moved into bigger quarters in Pittsburgh this past year to accommodate their growing staff and opened an office in Paris.”

Best Enterprise Search Solution

Earlier this month Vivisimo’s Velocity 4.2 was chosen as the “Best Enterprise Search Solution” at InfoWorld’s 2006 Technology of the Year Awards. InfoWorld’s annual Technology of the Year Awards recognize the top 10 technologies that made the greatest impact during the past year, as well as products that best exemplify the implementation of those technologies.

“InfoWorld’s selection of the best enterprise search is based on in-house testing by their experts, which makes their selection of Velocity as a technology of the year especially gratifying,” says Jerome Pesenti, co-founder and chief scientist of Vivisimo.