Compete, Inc., which runs the popular website traffic analysis and comparison site Compete.com, was founded here in Boston as a business intelligence company in 2000 after the height of the dotcom bubble. They raised $6 million Series A that year from Charles River Ventures, St. Paul Venture Capital and North Hill Ventures. After eight years of building a company to 100 employees here in Boston – and three rounds and $33 million of financing later – Compete, Inc. sold to United Kingdom-based Taylor Nelson Sofres for $150 million in 2008.

Compete publicly launched its initial data analytics product in 2001, which used online consumer behavior to project future purchases. After building a management team and expanding its customer base to include top-tier clients such as Visa, Fidelity, Forbes, USA Today, and Microsoft, Compete landed an additional $13 million Series B in 2003 from existing investors and William Blair Capital Partners.

Hercules Technology Growth Capital infused another $4 million in capital into Compete in March 2006, that fall the company passed the two million member mark, and later that year the company launched Compete.com. Compete, Inc. went on to secure a Series C led by Waltham Commonwealth Capital Ventures and previous investors in August 2007. Compete’s revenues rose 50 percent that year to $15 million.

United Kingdom based Taylor Nelson Sofres acquired Compete, Inc. 7 months later in March 2008 for $150 million, a quarter of the market value of publicly traded comScore, Inc. at the time. Today, Compete, Inc. operates under NY-based Kantar Media which, according to their website, “helps more than 22,000 clients master the world’s multimedia momentum through analysis of print, radio, TV, internet, cinema and outdoor worldwide.”

Many of Compete’s early management team spent over 5 years building Compete and some continue to work there, while others went on to build separate data-driven or analytics focused companies right here in Boston, including Performable, The Echo Nest, Visible Measures, and ClickSquared. Learn more about this tech mafia below:

Bill Gross

Then: Founder of Idealab, who came up with the idea of Compete and was also an Angel investor.
Now: Owner of Idealab and is Chairman of Snap, one of the largest distributed media networks on the Internet, eSolar, a solar technology company that generates energy that is cost-competitive with fossil fuels,  and N54, and quality-centric monetization platform for publishers and advertisers.
Along the way: After the idea of Compete, Gross went on to found Evolution Robotics (state of the art visual pattern recognition and autonomous navigation technology), Desktop Factory (breakthrough desktop 3D printer), and Perfect Market (helps online publishers monetize their archived content).
Gross on LinkedIn | Twitter.

David Cancel

Then: Co-founder and CTO
Now: Founder & CEO of Performable, an internet marketing software and analytics company, and an advisor to Shareaholic and Sonian.
Along the way: After leaving Compete in 2007, Cancel went on to found and serve as CTO of Lookery (a data-driven online ad network which sold to Adknowledge in in late 2008) and Ghostery (a browser plugin that detects web bugs and other tracking devices on webpages and which was acquired by Better Advertising in January of this year). Cancel also advised Visible Measures, a video analytics company here in Boston, for over 3 years.
Cancel on LinkedIn | Twitter.

Don McLagan

Then: Chairman, President & CEO
Now: Writes poetry at Dons Poems, and is an advisor or Board member to MITX, the Echo Nest, RunKeeper, Visible Gains, and Visible Measures. He also is a mentor for TechStars.
McLagan on LinkedIn | Twitter.

Stephen DiMarco

Then & Now: CMO
Tenure: Over 9 years
DiMarco on LinkedIn | Twitter.

Scott Ernst

Then & Now: President
Tenure: Over 8.5  years
Ernst on LinkedIn | Twitter.

Ryan Burke

Then: Managing Director, Sales & Business Development
Now: VP Sales at Compete, Inc.
Tenure: Over 9 years
Burke on LinkedIn.

Christopher Gillett

Then: Chief Software Architect (for 5 years)
Now: Chief Software Architect at Visible Measures, a video analytics company.
Along the way: Gillett went on to serve as a Software Developer for Vertica Systems, an analytics database built for business intelligence.
Gillett on LinkedIn | Twitter.

Joyce Bell

Then: CFO (for 6 years)
Now: CFO at ClickSquared, Inc., provider of cross-channel marketing and email marketing services.
Bell on LinkedIn.

Follow Compete on Twitter, Facebook and on their blog, Compete Pulse, here. Did we miss any of the early members of Compete, Inc.? Let us know in the comments!