Urchin Software Corporation

Urchin was founded by Paul Muret and Scott Crosby in December 1995 in San Diego, California. In its original incarnation, the company was called Web Depot, and built/hosted websites for various mostly San Diego companies, including the two largest private employers in the area Sharp Healthcare and Solar Turbines.

In 1998, the four principals of the company (Paul Muret, Scott Crosby, Jack Ancone, and Brett Crosby) decided to jettison the hosting and design elements of the business and focus solely on the Urchin software, which had become fairly popular for its speed and efficiency at processing large web server log files. At that time, Honda had standardized on it, and EarthLink had just become a customer. Quantified Systems, as the company was then known, raised a round of angel funding from various family members, a small venture capital firm called Green Thumb Ventures, and friends. The funding round came to approximately $1 million.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Quantified grew rapidly on the strength of both the software and large contracts secured by Giacomino (Jack) Ancone and Brett Crosby. Among their major customers were Earthlink, Verio, Cable & Wireless, Rackspace, and the ill-fated Winstar. An office was opened in Tokyo and employment reached approximately 40 total.