ResearchGate, the Cambridge and Berlin-based online network for scientists, announced yesterday it had closed an undisclosed amount in Series B financing, led by Founders Fund partner Luke Nosek, co-founder of PayPal, with participation from Benchmark Capital, Accel Partners, Michael Birch, co-founder of Bebo, and David Sacks, founder of Yammer and Geni, Inc.
ResearchGate aims to increase collaboration between scientific researchers, allowing them to connect with other scientists, share ideas and access existing research. The company was co-founded by three scientists in 2008, including its CEO, Dr. Ijad Madisch of Harvard Medical School.
“We want to change the way scientific reputation is measured, calculated and built over time by providing our users with qualitative feedback, while enabling them to share their findings efficiently,” said Dr. Madisch.
But Bilal Zuberi of General Catalyst Partners showed me a few of the challenges ResearchGate might face.
“This space of vertical communities is interesting, but ultimate monetization potential is totally unclear,” Zuberi said by email. “Communities like Sermo for doctors, Behance for designers and [ResearchGate] for scientists etc. are capped in total number of people that they are addressing. So they need to figure out what is it that their communities really value or need. [ResearchGate] needs a killer app that promotes engagement.”
If they can succeed, it could have very real benefits not only for academics, but for all of us who benefit from scientific advancements. It could offer the opportunity for increasingly hyper-specialized researchers to cut across traditional academic fault lines and do more interdisciplinary research. Moreover, there’s reason to think that existing connections between researchers creates better work. That, at least, is what we’ve seen in the physical world.
As Jonah Lehrer related in a recent New Yorker piece:
“A few years ago, Isaac Kohane, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, published a study that looked at scientific research conducted by groups in an attempt to determine the effect that physical proximity had on the quality of the research… Once the data was amassed, the correlation became clear: when coauthors were closer together, their papers tended to be of significantly higher quality.”
Of course, whether better connections online can lead to an increase in the quality of academic research is an open question.
ResearchGate isn’t a surprising investment for Founders Fund, given the group’s commitment to furthering the development of truly groundbreaking tech, as described in their manifesto “What Happened to the Future.” ResearchGate’s success would ultimately bolster the innovation pipeline that Founders Fund claims has stalled.
