About Dan Wagner
A history of the entrepeneur and his achievements
November 1984
Dan Wagner leaves WCRS advertising to start M.A.I.D.
27th February 1985
M.A.I.D. Systems Limited incorporated in London.
November 1985
M.A.I.D. service launched at the Waldorf Hotel in Covent Garden.
January 1986
Octagon invests £100,000 in M.A.I.D for 15%.
Information World Review features M.A.I.D
IFR Feature on M.A.I.D »
July 1986
New York Office established in the apartment located at 124 West 60th Street in New York City.
First Advertisement for M.A.I.D. in Campaign (UK Advertising Industry trade bible).
M.A.I.D Campaign Advert »
20th May 1988
British & Commonwealth Ventures invests £500,000 in M.A.I.D. for 12.5%.
Marketing Magazine 20th May 1988
MAID poised for major expansion »
July 1988
Los Angeles office established on Wiltshire Boulevard.
June 1989
Paris office established in 1 Rue Presbourg.
March 1991
Establishment of Milan office.
15th March 1994
M.A.I.D. PLC floats on the London Stock Exchange.
9th August 1995
M.A.I.D. announces partnership with Microsoft, shares double in one day.
Read more:
Financial Times - MAID shares double as it announces Microsoft deal
Daily Express - Microsoft's deal means Wagner has got it MAID
November 1995
M.A.I.D. lists on NASDAQ market.
4th February 1996
M.A.I.D. partners with Granada to offer internet access in Hotel bedrooms.
Sky News Business - Annoucement of new service in conjunction with Granada
April 1997
Dan Wagner addresses Institute of Directors Annual Convention at the Royal Albert Hall.
3rd October 1997
M.A.I.D acquires Knight Ridder Information in $420m reverse acquisition creating a new world leader in Online Information, The Dialog Corporation.
8th June 1999
Dialog signs multi million pound licensing deal with Fujitsu in Japan.
March 2000
Dialog Information Services sold to Thomson Corporation (now Thomson Reuters) for $330m. Bright Station PLC retains all technology assets � search and ecommerce.
29th May 2000
Bright Station acquires Boo.com technology and assets for £250,000.
Watch the story Boo - Business Nightmares
Read more:
The Times - Wagner snaps up boo.com technology for
GBP250,000
2000
Dan Wagner writes a series of articles for the (UK) Sunday Express Newspaper under the name 'The eVangelist'
Read more:
The eVangelist
10th January 2001
Bright Station PLC enters into broad ranging technology alliance with Intel.
May 2001
Dan Wagner takes Bright Station (and Venda) private in multi million pound acquisition.
9th January 2003
Locayta Limited founded with Andre Brown to develop leading edge search technologies.
January 2007
Bright Station invests in blog publishing to develop women's titles on the web.
26th May 2007
Osoyou launches as flagship social shopping site for women.
Read more:
Osoyou - 'If she can have it, why can't I'
August 2008
Eric Abensur promoted from COO of Venda to Group CEO.
Read more:
Wagner composes return to public stage
August 2009
Osoyou and blogs titles merge to create Aigua Media. Mischa Alexander becomes CEO.
May 2010
Dan Wagner moves to Non-Executive Chairman of Venda and spins out Venda for Small Business to create Powa Technologies Limited. Dan Wagner takes the role of Chairman and CEO.
Read more:
Wagner sees gap as website provider
April 2011
Sir James Dyson, Dan Wagner,Sir Martin Sorrell,Sir Gerry Robinson,Sir Richard Branson and Rita Clifton reveal the mistakes they experienced over the course of their careers.
Read more:
Open University - Learning from business mistakes
January 2012
mPowa.me launches
Serial technology entrepreneur Dan Wagner explains why he's not afraid to take chances when it comes to invention.
Dan Wagner (born 28th July 1963) is a British internet entrepreneur and businessman who founded M.A.I.D (Marketing Analysis & Information Database) in 1984, a company which pioneered the provision of online information services. It made over 200,000 publications available online from 192 countries.
Leaving school at 16, he began his career as a salesman in a hi-fi shop in central London before joining advertising agency WCRS as a junior Account Executive. While doing market research that involved laborious searching of back copies of newspapers, journals, and research reports, Dan first generated the concept of an electronic, PC-based information service. In 1984 at the age of 20, he left WCRS to pursue his ambition of creating such a service and established M.A.I.D.
M.A.I.D became a key contributor to the rapid acceptance and take-up of online business information services during the 1990's and Wagner built the company up from zero to 26% of the global online information market.
M.A.I.D was floated on the London Stock Exchange in early 1994 and later in the US via a NASDAQ listing in late 1995.
Wagner's honours include being chosen by the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader of Tomorrow and also being awarded Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 1998.
After retaining the eCommerce and search technologies following the sale of MAID in early 2000 to Thomson Reuters for $330 million, Wagner developed Venda – the world's largest 'on demand' ecommerce provider - and Locayta – sophisticated search and profiling technology - : who are now global leaders in their fields.
In 2009, Wagner consolidated a variety of fashion and female focussed blogs together with his social shopping platform – Osoyou.com – into Aigua Media Group which aims to be a leader in web-based professional women's media and today boasts over 1.4m unique visitors a month.
Most recently Wagner set up a new ecommerce and web publishing platform for small businesses called Powa in which he has the role of CEO.
