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Razorfish (company)

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Razorfish
Company type
Subsidiary
Nasdaq: RAZF (1999-2003)
IndustryDigital marketing
Predecessor
  • Razorfish Inc.
  • SBI Razorfish
  • Avenue A | Razorfish
Founded1995 (1995)
New York City, United States
Founders
  • Craig Kanarick
  • Jeff Dachis
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Dani Mariano (CEO)[1]
ParentPublicis Groupe

Razorfish is a digital advertising agency and a subsidiary of Publicis Groupe. The brand was merged into Publicis in 2019 and was revived in 2020.

History

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Early history

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Razorfish was started in 1995 in New York by Craig Kanarick and Jeff Dachis, who worked out of Dachis’s apartment in Manhattan's Alphabet City neighborhood. Their first large project was building a small website for the New York Botanical Garden for $20,000.[2]

Kanarick created a website with animated gifs and the "server-push" feature of the Netscape browser, which he named "The Blue Dot". This site was a gallery of digital art that Kanarick and Dachis used to promote themselves to large companies.[3]

In 1995, Razorfish made over $300,000, and in 1996, they earned over $1.2 million with a $300,000 profit. In 1997, Razorfish made over $3.6 million and began acquiring other companies.[4] In 1998, Razorfish bought Avalanche Systems, Plastic in San Francisco,[5] CHBi in London,[6] <tag> media in Los Angeles, and merged with the Scandinavian company Spray.[7]

In 1998, Razorfish made over $83 million and was profitable, with over 1,100 employees.[8] In April 1999, they held an initial public offering (IPO), raising $48 million at $16 per share.[2] In fall 1999, Razorfish bought International Integration, Inc. (I-Cube), which was their largest acquisition at the time.[9] Sales for 1999 reached over $170 million.[4]

In February 2000, Craig Kanarick and Jeff Dachis were interviewed on 60 Minutes II by Bob Simon, and struggled to clearly explain what their company did.[10] The interview was widely seen as a failure.[11]

In May 2000, Razorfish started Intervision-Razorfish, a joint venture in Tokyo.[12] Around this time, the dot-com bubble began affecting the industry, and Razorfish's revenue decreased to $50 million in 2000 and 2001.[4]

Acquisitions by SBI, aQuantive, and Microsoft

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In 2003, SBI Group bought Razorfish and renamed it SBI.Razorfish.[13] In 2004, aQuantive bought SBI.Razorfish and renamed it Avenue A | Razorfish. In 2005, this company had the highest interactive revenue in the U.S., at $189.8 million, according to Ad Age.[14]

Between 2005 and 2007, Razorfish expanded overseas through acquisitions in London,[15] Paris,[16] Sydney, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Berlin, Frankfurt,[17] Singapore and a joint venture in Tokyo.[18]

In 2007, Microsoft bought Avenue A | Razorfish as part of a $6.0 billion purchase of aQuantive.[19] Microsoft sold Razorfish in 2009, as it competed with Microsoft Advertising's main business of selling ad technology to rival agencies.[20][21]

Acquisition by Publicis Groupe

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On August 9, 2009, Publicis Groupe bought Razorfish from Microsoft for $530 million in cash and shares, giving Microsoft a 3% stake in Publicis Groupe.[22][23] In 2013, Razorfish launched its operations in India through the acquisition of Neev Technologies, which is based in Bengaluru.[24]

In October 2016, Razorfish merged with Sapient Corporation's division SapientNitro,[25] to form SapientRazorfish.[26] In July 2018, Publicis began laid off 100 employees at Sapient Razorfish.[27] On February 13, 2019, Publicis announced that Publicis.Sapient, SapientRazorfish, and Sapient Consulting had been merged into one brand, Publicis Sapient.[28]

In January 2020, Publicis announced that it would revive the Razorfish brand for its digital marketing agency, consisting of clients that did not fit into Publicis Sapient's marketing strategy.[29]

References

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  1. ^ "Dani Mariano Elevated to CEO of Razorfish U.S." 2025-07-08. Retrieved 2026-05-03.
  2. ^ a b "Razorfish, Inc. History". International Directory of Company Histories. Vol. 27. St. James Press. 2001.
  3. ^ Eskilson, Stephen (2023-10-17). Digital Design: A History. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-18139-4.
  4. ^ a b c Kidder, David S. (2012-12-14). The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from their Founding Entrepreneurs. Chronicle Books. pp. 87–88. ISBN 978-1-4521-2404-9.
  5. ^ "Melding Cultures: No Easy Task When Companies Marry". www.businessweek.com. Archived from the original on September 9, 1999. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  6. ^ "CHBi Razorfish: Private Company Information - Businessweek". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  7. ^ "Razorfish Merges with Europe's Spray Network". www.clickz.com. 12 August 1998. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  8. ^ "Brattitude Adjustment". WIRED. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  9. ^ Short Take: Razorfish acquires i-Cube CNET, November 2, 1999.
  10. ^ "The Dot-Com Kids - CBS News". www.cbsnews.com. 2000-02-15. Retrieved 2026-05-03.
  11. ^ Staff, WIRED. "Brattitude Adjustment". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2026-05-03.
  12. ^ "Razorfish Joint Venture Renamed". AdWeek. 2 May 2002. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  13. ^ "SBI and Company Completes Acquisition of Razorfish, Inc". PR Newswire. March 3, 2003. Retrieved February 1, 2013.
  14. ^ Top 50 Interactive Agencies - Advertising Age - DataCenter: Agencies April 28, 2006 (Revised June 5, 2006)
  15. ^ Avenue A / Razorfish Acquires U.K.-based Interactive Marketing Agency, DNA, 6 December 2005
  16. ^ Avenue A / Razorfish Snaps Up French Agency, 7 March 2007
  17. ^ Avenue A/Razorfish Enters Germany With Neue Digitale Buy, 9 August, 2006
  18. ^ Avenue A/Razorfish Adds Japanese Outpost 17 January, 2007 Archived 2012-04-15 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ Microsoft Press Release, 18 May 2007
  20. ^ "Microsoft puts Razorfish up for sale". Financial Times. June 28, 2009.
  21. ^ "Microsoft to cut Razorfish loose".
  22. ^ Vranica, Suzanne (August 10, 2009). "Publicis to Buy Razorfish". Wall Street Journal.
  23. ^ Mary Elizabeth Hurn (April 22, 2009). "Razorfish names Bob Lord CEO, Kokich to become chairman". Clark Kokich had served as the CEO of the company since July 2007, however in April 2009, Bob Lord was named the new CEO, while Kokich will took on [sic] the newly formed role of Chairman.
  24. ^ Pinto, Viveat (18 April 2013). "Publicis launches digital agency Razorfish in India". Business Standard India.
  25. ^ "SapientRazorfish: What's in a name change and a restructure? Quite a lot, actually".
  26. ^ "Publicis Merges Digital Shops SapientNitro and Razorfish, Creating SapientRazorfish". 17 November 2016.
  27. ^ Only, Subscription (2018-07-12). "SapientRazorfish Lays Off 100 in U.S. as Publicis Prepares to Retire the Brand, Sources Say". Retrieved 2026-05-03.
  28. ^ "Publicis.Sapient Names New CEO as the 28-Year-Old Razorfish Brand Comes to an End". 2019-02-06. Retrieved 2026-05-03.
  29. ^ ago, Erik Oster|1 hour (14 January 2020). "Exclusive: Publicis Groupe Is Reviving Razorfish". www.adweek.com. Retrieved 2020-01-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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