Business

Panjiva hosts a database of information on over 700,000 suppliers, including recent shipments, customer lists, credit reports, certification details, and denied parties lists. It claims to be the first and only online information source designed to provide complete transparency into overseas suppliers. According Jeff Silberman, chair of the department of textile development and marketing at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology “Panjiva is not just innovative, it’s revolutionary”[1]

By collecting market data from suppliers, Panjiva is also able to produce details of trends within sectors. Information published by Panjiva has been used by news websites such as FT.com[2] and CNNMoney.com[3].

Founding

Josh Green was working at an electronics company in Summer of 2005 when he was asked to find a replacement for one of the company’s existing suppliers. “Naively, I thought this would be easy” said Panjiva co-founder Green, “but I soon discovered two things. First, that there is no shortage of information about companies on the web. And second, that almost none of it is either objective or useful in identifying trustworthy suppliers. When I talked the problem over with my MIT friend Jim Psota, Panjiva was born.”

Naming

Panjiva started out with the name “GlobalReferenceCheck”, but sensing that a new name might simplify branding and marketing, co-founders Green and Psota played on Pangaea, the word for the supercontinent that existed before the component continents were separated into their current configuration, to arrive at Panjiva.