InnoCentive, a place to solve research problems, gets boost
InnoCentive, a company that lets businesses post research problems for others to solve, has raised $6.5 million in a second round of venture capital.
Dwayne Spradlin is the CEO of the Waltham, Mass., spin-off from Eli Lilly.
Spradlin calls the site, where companies post problems and outsiders solve them in exchange for prizes, a “global innovation marketplace.”
Since 2001, InnoCentive’s “seekers” have been posting problems on its site to take advantage of crowdsourcing, or the collective intelligence of outside scientists and engineers, dubbed “solvers.” The solvers get rewards and the seekers find that they can get more work done than their internal R&D departments can handle. To date, the solvers have collected more than $3 million in rewards. InnoCentive now has 140,000 solvers for dozens of Fortune 500 companies.
The funding comes from Spencer Trask Ventures. Listen to audio post for more
Next Story: PlayPhone acquires Pitch Entertainment Group for European mobile expansion
Previous Story: Roundup: Sprint to announce a big wireless partnership, Sun previews JavaFX and more
About the Author, Dean Takahashi
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
-
Rocco Di Matteo