Mr. Kraettli Lawrence Epperson is best known for having co-founded the world’s largest digital library, Questia Media, in 1998. The company raised $160MM in venture capital and built the world’s largest academic digital library while working closely with book publishers to digitize and monetize their out-of-print titles.

Mr. Epperson bought the company’s first computers out of his personal checking account in 1998 and helped set up shop in an efficiency apartment in south Houston, where he began programming the first version of the company’s library engine while aiding in fund-raising and publisher negotiations. The company received its initial seed investment in 1999 from Rod Canion, the founder of Compaq Computers.

From late 1998 through 2000, Mr. Epperson served as the company’s Chief Technology Officer, reporting to the board of directors and leading two 30-person technical teams to develop both the company’s primary service offering and the internal systems required to digitally acquire tens of thousands of books.

Today, Questia provides a premium subscription-based online information service that more than 500,000 students from 200 countries have used since its launch. The library contains more than 75,000 online books from more than 300 reputable commercial and academic presses, and more than 9 million quality, citable journal, newspaper and magazine articles. It also provides organizational and paper-writing tools to help manage research and automatically generate footnotes and bibliographies.

Questia Media was bought by Cengage Learning in February of 2010: “Questia has developed excellent products for learners and educators, with quality content and unique technologies created specifically for college students, professors and high school students,” said Patrick C. Sommers, president of Gale. “The business has a solid subscription base and is developing unique applications to extend its reach to users around the world.”

Check out Kraettli's blog here: http://techventuregeek.com