Will it sell if you can't explain it to your grandmother? Razorfish hopes to succeed by speaking to the Internet generation. Founded in 1995 by current CEO Jeff Dachis, Razorfish leverages digital technologies to help companies invent and reinvent the way they do business. The company provides its clients with "end-to-end" solutions, including everything from branding and business strategy to back-end technology transformation and front-end web design. The firm delivers its services across various platforms, devices and networks - and sometimes they even design the devices through which content is delivered. For example, in collaboration with New Jersey-based consultancy Cieos, Razorfish worked to develop a proprietary hardware solution called Cieoport, a digital device for the dental industry. The product has an LCD touch screen that allows users to access office databases, patient information, and other relevant content, as well as games to keep patients entertained.

The founding

Razorfish was founded in 1995 by Jeff Dachis and Craig Kanarick, old friends from Minnesota who relocated to New York City. Excited by the possibilities of what was then Mosaic, Dachis and Kanarick first applied their technical and creative skills to freelance design work. After landing a huge fish of a client - Time Warner - the duo decided to incorporate. They chose the name of Razorfish, a small, edgy piscine.

Digital forte

As cofounder Dachis explains to Vault.com, "Razorfish's work is all things digital, not just the Internet or Web design. Whether it's helping transform a roadside service firm into a company that enables mobility, migrating the large and complex back end of a major financial institution into a more user-friendly, web-based commerce site, or showing the world how easy it is to trade stock online, Razorfish helps clients leverage digital technology to improve their business at the core. In all of its work, Razorfish creates intentional user experience - a sort of modern version of good old-fashioned customer focus." Recent clients include Charles Schwab & Co. Inc., the Financial Times, and European clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz.

Aggressive growth

Razorfish has grown impressively over the past five years through a careful mix of organic growth and acquisitions. In 1998, the firm acquired five companies, including London-based CHBi, San Francisco company Plastic, and Los Angeles-based Media. The following year, the it acquired Spray Network AB, a digital solutions developer based in Stockholm, i-Cube, an electronic transformation services provider; brand managment and broadcast design firms Lee Hunt Associates and Fuel; and TS Design, an Internet strategy and project design firm. So far in 2000, Razorfish has acquired Qb International Holding AB, a Swedish IT/Strategic consulting company. Today Razorfish employs over 1700 people in 13 cities across the globe as it continues to expand into areas such as wireless communications.