Data Aggregator Launches Business Information Search Engine

Sick and tired of searching for specific business information on Yahoo!, Lycos or AltaVista??? So was CEO, Steven Goldstein, of Data Downlink who decided to take charge and create a new search engine to solve the problem. As a result, Data Downlink launched Portal B on May 1, the first true business information search engine.

"What we were finding was that people were searching through the traditional Web browsers for business information and were book marking different sites that they wanted to return to," Goldstein says.

The firm conducted an informal poll asking what people thought of their business information searches using these traditional browsers. "They all thought the results were terrible. To find important business information, it was really, really hard," Goldstein implores.

Data Downlink had already launched one product called XLS-which aggregates quantitative business information such as earnings estimates, mergers and acquisitions information, shareholder information, and company financials, among other information. The firm had built a customer base of about 700 information professionals and corporate librarians at investment banks and consultants, including Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. In order to launch the new portal, "we kept track of all these valuable sites." Then they created a search tool that works on a very limited set of sites that were hand picked and hand indexed.

Goldstein notes that when a person is in need of very specific business information, it is very difficult to use the standard Web browser. For example, if an investment banker types in "poison pill" on Yahoo!, he or she will get medical information. To an investment banker a poison pill is a strategic move by a takeover target to make its stock less attractive to the acquirer. If the investment banker did the search on Portal B, he or she would come up with information related to the business definition of poison pill.

Of course, the search engine comes at a price. Data Downlink's fees are dependent on the number of users at an organization. Goldstein notes that for a small investment bank, it could be in the range of $6,000 a year, and for a large organization it could be about $100,000-$200,000 a year. He says his firm is in talks with many of XLS's clients, which he believes will sign on to Portal B.

The company has raised $16 million in four rounds of financing. The last round brought in $11 million from an investor group that included Flatiron Partners, Chase Capital Partners, Franklin Capital Corporation, BARRA Inc, and Hicks, Must, Tate & Furst.