Setting A New (Internet) World Record

China-based Internet entrepreneur Casper Johansen has a staggeringly ambitious goal – a web site that contains detailed information about every publicly listed company in the world by Mark Graham

Tough professional challenges are nothing new to Casper Johansen， whose career to date has included spells as a military officer， investment banker and furniture importer.

The Dane’s latest， self-assigned task is the most ambitious of all – compiling an Internet database of every publicly-listed company in the world. The unlikely venue for this adventurous start-up is a Beijing residential suburb， where Johansen and a team of 20 programmers and analysts are painstakingly assembling the information and designing the site， with the ultimate aim of making money from Internet sales.

Like many of the best entrepreneurial ideas， it is astonishingly simple. Johansen and his two partners reason that there is a vast potential market of individuals and organizations ready and willing to pay a modest amount for specific， company-related information if it saves them valuable time. The web site， sevaria.com， will host a vast archive of information about listed companies around the world， allowing people to quickly locate factual nuggets about General Motors production levels， Haier patent applications or the Hyundai corporate hierarchy.

“The basic plan is to have a database of all the public business files in the world，” says Johansen， the executive chairman. “Right now there are individual web sites from different government entities that are hard for users to find; if you don’t know where to go， you have to navigate through a lot of different sites before you find what you need.

“We collect all our records electronically. We focus on a broad array of data sets， and put a lot of emphasis on the connections between the data sets. The largest file we have on our site is IBM， they have over 200，000 records in our database. Just the amount is staggering， impossible for anyone to look through， but with smart data analysis you can actually tie them together and cut them down and slice and dice them so you can make sense of them.

“We are an Internet company， so we are targeting the very large group of Internet users who we think lack quality information， so we will have a very low price point.”

The idea grew out of discussions between Johansen and pal Thomas Escobar， a former product manager for Google. At the time， Johansen was working in Hong Kong as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs， dabbling in various businesses on the side， including a venture that imported furniture into Turkey.

The entrepreneurial-minded pair agreed that a worldwide company databank site had enormous potential as a business， but clearly could not be developed properly while they were both holding full time day jobs. After a spell of working nights and weekends on the fledgling business plan， Johansen made the momentous decision to venture into the precarious world of self-owned business， giving up the generous salary and housing package that came with the investment-banking job.

“It meant walking away from a lot，” he recalls. “But after being in finance for seven years， I felt that this was something I had to do， to fulfill who I was. For the first year we worked out of Thomas’s apartment in Hong Kong and we had Filipino maids come and cook for a week and put the meals in the freezer. We were working at least 12-hour days. Friends and family helped with the financing， and we had a very low burn rate.”

A trip to the United States in search of potential funding took place in the atmosphere of malaise and restraint engendered by the global financial crisis: while Johansen’s industry contacts agreed it was a splendid idea， they kept their check-writing hands firmly in their pockets.

But one contact led to another and a major investor was found – leaving the company free to draw up a detailed business plan and set about hiring staff. The high cost of office rental and personnel in Hong Kong forced the Seravia principals to scour the globe for alternatives.

After carefully considering the pros and cons of various cities， Beijing emerged as the favorite， partly because of its vast pool of smart， Internet-savvy graduates from the city’s numerous universities and technical institutes. It was also a serendipitous choice for personal reasons， allowing Johansen’s wife， Beijing-born former investment banker Melody He， the chance to be close to family and friends.

The Sevaria office is located in a distinctly unhip place for an Internet start up， a hard-to-find residential compound where outlets selling lattes， espressos and mochas are thin on the ground. On the plus side， the rent is modest， the ceilings high and the nightlife zone of Sanlitun only a ten-minute walk away. An attempt has been made to introduce a Silicon Valley atmosphere by installing colorful bean bag chairs and funky metal furniture.

It has to be a place where staff feels comfortable， given the amount of time senior employees currently spend in the office. Johansen， 37， regularly works 12-hour days， juggling work commitments with raising a family of two young children. The keen soccer fan winds down by playing the odd pick-up game， watching his team Manchester United on television and， when time permits， taking weekend family ski trips to the slopes of Wanlong in nearby Hebei province， a three-hour drive from the capital.

“Beijing is a fascinating place， we could operate anywhere in the world but we choose to be here，” says the soft-spoken Johansen. “We talked about Silicon Valley， Hong Kong and India but ultimately decided on China. We decided that Beijing was the best tech center， with the best tech people and we figured that some of them would want to work in English， for a foreign company， a typical start-up where you have a lot of responsibility very quickly， with less structure. Employees also share rewards based on performance.

“Getting financing is tough but finding and retaining the right employees is the hardest bit. You need flexible people with a start-up. Most of our staff is experienced hires: two thirds are people who were born， bred and educated in China and one third are people with foreign passports who have a connection with China in some way through heritage， or who have studied here. They are all very passionate about China and being here.”

Although the company’s business is not China-specific， it does not hurt to have local knowledge when doing an electronic trawl through the vast amount of information that is available from government departments and agencies and local companies. Johansen’s staff was pleasantly surprised to discover that a large amount of the China data is in English: the official patent files alone contain around three million records.

Patent data from different countries around the world is just one section of the Sevaria information bank. If the data is in the public domain， and likely to be of use to a customer， it finds its way into the files， which explains why there is a section listing senior executives on work visas in the United States， their salaries and the length of their contracts. Sophisticated Sevaria software helps clients sift through jumbled masses of information and focus on specific requirements.

“It is like a Google search， but sorted into different categories，” says Johansen. “Basically we are helping entrepreneurs and small businesses by making information easier to find.It is worth their while to pay for something that might take them several hours to do.

“We generate reports which slice this data in a lot of different ways. You might be interested in the intellectual property of the company， and through their trademark report you can get a much better snapshot of what the company has done， what their key brands are， and which ones they seem to protect.

“What we also do is put our data in real time when it is available – some are daily， some are weekly， monthly or quarterly. What our users can subscribe to is alerts for a person’s name or company or brand. They can react. A lot of people would be looking at their competitors， employers could be seeing what their employees are patenting outside the work place. You could also use it for your own patents， brands and companies that other people are in any way infringing and also use it for business relationship. If I was a potential employee I would look up my employer on the site and vice versa.”

Sevaria aims to make money by charging a low fee for access in the hope that thousands — or millions， if the business really flies — will be prepared to pay a few dollars for vital， time-saving information. Anyone who wants to take their search to another level can subscribe to a premium， or specialized， service.

For Johansen， the Internet venture is the start of yet another career during a professional life that has seen him spend time in the military， legal and financial fields.He spent his teen years in New York City， where his father worked， before heading home to join the officer-training program of the Danish Air Force， commanding a platoon of much-older men at the tender age of 20.

He later completed a legal degree but instead of practicing， opted to join the financial sector， most recently working with Goldman Sachs in London and Hong Kong on mergers and acquisitions， equity and debt financings， leveraged buyouts and advisory work for corporations and private equity funds.

“Next year we hope to be making a profit – it is a trade-off between how much we invest in infrastructure， people and marketing. Our aim right now is to launch the products and see how it goes.，” says Johansen.