Stockholm, Sweden – Jan 8, 2009 – alaTest, the market and technology leader in product quality information, today announced that it has been nominated for the Red Herring Top Global 100 award as one of the top technology startups in the world. The award caps a year of unprecedented growth for alaTest in which the company achieved profitability, secured a large round of financing and expanded its client base to include companies like Kelkoo, Shopzilla, Neckermann, Sony Ericsson and Intel. The nomination is the second alaTest has received from Red Herring, which also named alaTest to its 2008 Top 100 Europe list.
The Red Herring editorial team rigorously reviewed 1,200 privately-held companies from around the world to select the Global 100 nominees. Red Herring 100 winners and finalists from North America, Europe, and Asia of the last three years are eligible for the award, and evaluation are based on both quantitative and qualitative criteria such as financial performance, innovation, management, and global strategy.
"When alaTest launched in 2005, Amazon was basically the only one that offered review information; now both editorial reviews and user reviews are readily available to consumers on a majority of the large eCommerce sites in both the United States and the key markets in Europe," said Arie Struik, founder and CEO of alaTest. "We are proud of our active role in this transformation, and the way third party opinions change the online shopping landscape."
alaTest has successfully built up a portal for product quality comparison as well as a unique method of syndication of aggregated product reviews data to business to business partners to increase sales on partner websites. The alaTest database currently holds more than four million reviews and alaTest websites served over 3.6 million visitors in December of 2008. The service is currently available in 15 markets, including Germany, China, and soon Japan.
"This nomination is another confirmation that our business model is viable and alaTest has a bright future ahead of it. I am very glad we have come this far and with new features including semantic analysis convinced that we are just at the beginning." said Mr. Struik.
The announcement of the winners will be made at the Red Herring Global 2008 event in San Diego, California on Jan 14-16. Arie Struik will attend the awards conference where he will also participate in the expert panel of Web 3.0: Semantic Web.
About alaTest™
alaTest™ is an independent, free online service that helps consumers with their purchasing decisions. Available on the Internet at alaTest.com the site provides a global, objectively aggregated product quality rating called the alaScore™. It also presents product reviews and pricing information. At present the database offers more than 4,900.000 product reviews with emphasis on consumer electronics from more than 1,000 international review sources such as Consumer Reports, CNET.com, PC World, Stiftung Warentest, etc.
About Red Herring
Red Herring is a global media company that unites the world’s best high technology innovators, venture investors and business decision makers in a variety of forums: a leading innovation magazine, an online daily technology news service, technology newsletters and major events for technology leaders around the globe. Red Herring provides an insider’s access to the global innovation economy, featuring unparalleled insights on the emerging technologies driving the economy. More information about Red Herring is available on the Internet at www.redherring.com.
For more information, please contact:
Arie Struik
CEO and Founder of alaTest
Tel: +46 8 30 12 75
E-mail: arie (at) alaTest.com
alatest.com
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