|
Razorfish, Inc.
Overview | History | News | Officers & Employees | Location & Subsidiaries |
Products/Operations | Competitors & Industry | Financials | Search
OVERVIEW
Razorfish is sucking up the tank's other inhabitants in its
efforts to dominate the Internet design aquarium. The New
York City-based company specializes in high-end Internet
development for large corporations, and the
all-encompassing services that go with it -- consultation,
implementation, and enhancement. Its capabilities range from redesigning Web
sites to developing intranets and e-commerce applications. Razorfish's clients
include Charles Schwab, eBay, theglobe.com, Time Warner, the Smithsonian
Institution, and Ericsson.
Razorfish, which touts its services as "digital change management," flaunts its
flamboyance and stands out even amid the myriad new media bohemians that
make up Silicon Alley. Its decor includes meeting areas fashioned around diner
booths and a shrine to obsolete PCs. The attitude is not lost on employees, who
can bring pets to work and are the recipients of weekly pizzas and massages.
The company has grown out of its guppy stage by swallowing Internet
development firms, building both its customer and geographic bases. It is also
expanding its technology capabilities to include wireless, satellite, and
broadband communications favored in mobile phones, pagers, and other digital
devices.
Following Razorfish's planned IPO, shareholders of Sweden's Spray and
advertising agency Omnicom Group will each own 33% of the company;
co-founders Jeffrey Dachis (CEO) and Craig Kanarick (chief scientist) will each
own 10%.
HISTORY
Jeffrey Dachis and Craig Kanarick grew up together in Minneapolis, sharing
nursery school, religious classes, and youth groups. The boyhood buddies left
their hometown and took separate paths -- Dachis as the head of a guerrilla
marketing company (dubbed In Your Face) and Kanarick as a digital media
consultant -- before bumping into each other again in the mid-1990s on a New
York City corner. With Kanarick as the idea and design man and Dachis driving
business matters, the duo began Razorfish in 1995, naming the firm after a
keen-edged tropical fish.
Razorfish started small, doing freelance Web design work out of an apartment.
Dachis waited tables at a Tribeca diner some nights. Razorfish quickly became
known for its dynamic graphics (Kanarick graduated from MIT's Media Lab
and was well-versed in simulation software). Dachis and Kanarick, who by
1996 had moved shop to a SoHo loft, sold a chunk of Razorfish that year to
Omnicom Group in a move to gain capital and access to financing. The
company's Web designs began attracting the attention of large clients like Time
Warner.
In 1997 Razorfish was hired to redesign Charles Schwab's online trading site.
Also that year Dachis formed Razorfish Studios, a separate entity created to
develop and distribute art, computer games, books, screen savers, and other
digital media-based original content.
The company expanded like a pufferfish in 1998 through the purchase of five
new media companies, including London-based specialists Sunbather and
CHBI, and US-based companies Plastic and Avalanche Systems. Also that
year Razorfish moved into the broadcast and film production markets, adding a
group specializing in broadband video design and production.
Acquisition-related expenses put Razorfish in the red for fiscal 1998.
In January 1999 the company bought Swedish rival Spray, doubling Razorfish's
size and expanding its European presence. Later that month it filed to go public.
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Current News for Razorfish
More News
OFFICERS & EMPLOYEES
President, CEO, and Treasurer: Jeffrey A. Dachis, age 32, $109,000 pay
VC, Chief Scientist, and Secretary: Craig M. Kanarick, age 32, $109,000
pay
Chairman: Per I. G. Bystedt, age 34
VC: Jonas S. A. Svensson, age 31
Chief Creative Officer: Peter Seidler, age 40, $114,500 pay
CFO: Susan Black, age 32
EVP, Business Affairs and General Counsel: Michael S. Simon, age 35
EVP, North American Operations: Jean-Philippe Maheu, age 35, $138,500
pay
EVP, European Operations: Thomas L. Randerz, age 42
EVP, Global Intelligence and Knowledge Management: Evan Orensten,
age 33, $126,416 pay
EVP, Mergers and Acquisitions, Europe: Johan Ihrfelt, age 31
EVP, Research and Development: Tucker Viemeister
Director, Human Resources: Elizabeth Semple
Solutions Manager: Claire Brown
Executive Producer: Ian Rhett
Auditors: Arthur Andersen LLP
1998 Employees: 210 (est.)
LOCATION & SUBSIDIARIES
Headquarters: 107 Grand St., 3rd Fl., New York, NY 10013
Phone: 212-966-5960
Fax: 212-966-6915
Web Site: razorfish.com
Razorfish has operations in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and
the US.
ipocentral.com |
|
