History & Values

For over 18 years, Cortera® has been at the forefront of simplifying and demystifying the often-confusing world of commercial credit and business information. Since our founding as eCredit, we have not only stood for innovation, unique insight and customer-driven excellence, but take pride in pushing the envelope in an industry that’s still far too complacent and stagnant. Unlike the dominant company in our field, Cortera is “the change agent” and believes that credit reporting information should not just come from the same 10,000 companies, but rather, that the time has come to open the doors to millions of additional businesses so they too can have the opportunity to share their feedback. It’s what our community is all about, and moreover, demonstrates our determination to transform an industry that desperately needs to enter the Internet age. Here are just some of the awards and recognition we’ve received in our efforts to reach new milestones.

2011

• Our first iPhone and iPad app is launched.  The app is free for all Cortera PULSE™ subscribers and available for immediate download in the iTunes AppStore.

2010

• Launches Cortera PULSE to enable subscribers to continuously monitors all of their customers for meaningful changes in their business and alerts them once a day to potential opportunity and risk so they can take immediate action. Cortera PULSE monitors 20 million public and private companies, capturing financial information such as financial bankruptcy filings, tax liens and civil judgments–all for only $99/per month.
• Cortera Circles launched at FinovateSpring 2010 , another industry first, to extend Cortera’s existing rating and review capabilities by enabling business pros to form groups of trusted peers. Just like on popular social networking websites members can invite friends and colleagues to join their Circle – now they have a platform dedicated to sharing payment experience among your own personal network.

2009

• Cortera transforms the world of B2B Credit with the first community-based rating & review website for commercial credit reporting. Launching at DEMOfall 2009, this crowd-sourced approach to credit risk management was immediately dubbed “Yelp for Business Credit” and wakes up an industry dominated by an “an old an stodgy” leader.
• Cortera customer Cisco wins the prestigious Alexander Hamilton Award in the Credit Risk Management category
• Delivering on the adage “information wants to be free”, Cortera publishes free credit ratings on over 10 million US businesses—an industry first.
• Launches Cortera CPR ushering in a new era in high-quality, high-value commercial credit reporting at prices unheard of before.

2008

• Cortera changes its legal name from eCredit.com, Inc. to Cortera, Inc.
• Launches Cortera Shipping Spend. This product provides market insight into the shipping spending habits of millions of companies.

2007

• Launches Cortera CONNECT® a web service which allows customers to integrate their Enterprise or Web applications with Cortera’s proprietary data and analytics.
• Launches Cortera LINK® a proprietary numbering system for business entities and their families. The LINK ID is a unique, persistent 9 digit number that uniquely identifies a discrete business location. Cortera’s database currently contains over 30 million unique LINK IDs, predominantly in the United States.
• Launches Cortera BOOST® a self-service, batch processing and appending tool. With Cortera BOOST™, customers can obtain new insights and information about their customer portfolio, prospect lists, or any other set of companies.
• Experian and Cortera partner to launch a new account and portfolio management decisioning tool for the trade credit market, Credit Risk Advisor, based on Cortera’s eCredit platform.

2006

• Cortera acquired by Fidelity Ventures, along with Battery Ventures and CIBC.
• Jim Swift becomes President & CEO. Several other industry veterans also join the team to round out the leadership.

2005

• Cortera acquires The CreditExchange (TCE) of Scottsdale, Arizonathe premier supplier of industry-specific credit reporting services for the trucking, truck leasing and fuel, and air cargo industries.
• PayStream Advisors Names Cortera’s eCredit software as the Best of Breed, Market Leader for Commercial Credit Management Software.
• Cortera’s eCredit software platform named finalist in Financial Software category by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA).

2004

• Cortera’s eCredit software platform named “Best Business Software” by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA).
• Cortera customer XTRA Lease wins the prestigious Alexander Hamilton Award in the Credit Risk Management category.
• Cortera’s eCredit software-as-a-service (SaaS) software adds next generation Collections Module. The industry’s first truly integrated on-demand solution.

2002

• Launches next generation software-as-a-service (SaaS) suite that combines both high-volume decisioning and scoring capabilities with deep financial analysis and workflow in single on-demand suite.
• Cortera (fka eCredit.com) and customer, Graybar, were recognized by the Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based IT market research firm, in its “Best Practices in Streamlining the Financial Value Chain” report for tailoring information technology to the existing credit strategy of the company and driving policy changes within Graybar.

2001

• Cortera (fka eCredit.com) and customer, Ryder win best practice award. Both companies recognized for IT excellence by eWeek and the Technology Managers Forum.

1999

• Launches first Software-as-a-service (or Application Service Provide – ASP) commercial credit decisioning platform, InstantDecision.

1998

• Launches first software to help improve the collections process through better workflow, Corporate Collections Expert (later called RapidCollect).

1993

• Founded following a research project on the intersection of working capital management and artificial intelligence technology in collaboration with the Credit Research Foundation and Procter and Gamble.
• Launches first enterprise software, Corporate Credit Expert (later called DecisionDesktop), aimed at making the trade credit operations of large corporations more efficient.