Hoover's Founder Back To ResearchHoover's Founder Back To Research

Few new companies are catching venture-capital wallet-share these days, but entrepreneur Patrick Spain has managed it with Alacritude, his online research firm. The company last week said it got $3.1 million in funding led by Prism Opportunity Fund along with 1to1 Venture Partners and private investors. Alacritude provides tools to organize and package information for researchers looking to produce business-quality reports.

Alacritude was launched last summer with money from Spain and private backers that was used to purchase two online research services: eLibrary, a subscription-based digital archive of more than 13 million documents from 2,000 publications, including news wires and newspapers; and Tucows Inc.'s online reference service, Encyclopedia.com. The company will use the new funds to build its research resources through internal development and acquisition.

Spain knows about online research--he co-founded Hoover's, a 12-year-old online database that provides information on more than 300 industries and about 18,000 public and private companies worldwide. He served as Hoover's CEO and chairman. Investors participating in the Alacritude funding cite Spain's experience and expertise as a key factor behind the investment.