Net Perceptions

In the Summer of 1996, David Gardiner, a former Ph.D. student of John Riedl, introduced Riedl to Steven Snyder. Snyder had been an early employee at Microsoft, but had left Microsoft to come to Minnesota to do a Ph.D. in Psychology. He realized the commercial potential of collaborative filtering, and encouraged the team to found a company in April 1996. By June, Gardiner, Snyder, Miller, Riedl, and Konstan incorporated their company, and by July had their first round of funding, from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.[5] Net Perceptions went on to be one of the leading companies in personalization during the Internet boom of the late 1990s,[6][7] went public on March 29, 2000 offering 2,000,000 shares of common stock, resulting in net proceeds to the company of $84.8 million, with 26,297,863 outstanding shares,[8] had 400 employees and stock at $60 per share,[9] and acquired marketing services startup KD1 for $126 million.[10] Then over time the stock lost 95 percent of its value, and it laid off most employees.[9] The company was delisted from the NASDAQ September 3, 2004,[11] and returned about $40 million to stockholders that same year.[12]