Colectica
Colectica develops DDI-based metadata documentation and management software for statistical agencies, survey research groups, and data archivists, offering desktop, server, and developer tools built on open data standards now recognized as ISO/PAS 25955:2026.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2006
- HeadquartersMinneapolis, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Colectica does
Colectica is a privately held software company founded in 2006 and headquartered in Minneapolis, MN that develops metadata documentation and management software built natively around the DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) open standard, now formally recognized as ISO/PAS 25955:2026. The company serves statistical agencies, survey research groups, public opinion research organizations, and data archivists — entities whose operations depend on rigorous, machine-readable, standards-based data documentation across the research data lifecycle. There is no disclosed management team beyond founder Dan Smith, and headcount sits in the 1–10 range, making Colectica a small, founder-led specialist rather than a scaled platform company.
The platform is organized as desktop tools (Colectica Reader, Designer, Questionnaires, for Excel), server and web products (Repository, Portal, Workflow Services, RDF Services), developer tools (C# SDK distributed via NuGet, Toolkit), and institutional bundles (Fusion, Curation Tools). Native DDI 3 and DDI-Lifecycle storage underpin every component, with integrations spanning SPSS, Stata, SAS, R, Blaise 5, REDCap, queXML, CASES, CSPro, Elasticsearch, and OAuth2/OIDC authentication, and deployment options that include Windows, Linux, and Docker. Curation Tools add automated ingestion pipelines using ClamAV, R, and Stat/Transfer for data archive workflows.
Colectica monetizes through software subscriptions ($59–$65/month per user for Designer, $695–$995/year per user for Questionnaires), enterprise site licenses with custom quotes, training courses, and professional services covering metadata consulting, deployment, and customization. Distribution is direct via the company website, supplemented by the company's June 2026 appointment as the official US distributor for Statistics Netherlands' Blaise Survey System. Cumulative disclosed funding totals approximately $625,541 across four non-dilutive federal research grants from 2006 to 2023 (NIH, NIA, CDC), indicating an unfunded, grant-and-revenue-supported operating model rather than a venture-backed growth trajectory.
Colectica firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Colectica
- Legal name
- Colectica
- Website
- https://colectica.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2006
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Colectica develops DDI-based metadata documentation and management software for statistical agencies, survey research groups, and data archivists, offering desktop, server, and developer tools built on open data standards now recognized as ISO/PAS 25955:2026.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Colectica industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Research Data Management Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (513210)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Data Sharing, Data Exchange & Data Marketplace Platforms (HDAEABAH)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Data Governance Platforms (Policies, Stewardship, Workflows) (HDAEADAB), Data Modeling & Semantic Layer / Business Glossary (HDAEADAJ)
Keywords
Where Colectica is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Minneapolis
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Colectica business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Software Licenses and Subscriptions: Colectica generates revenue through software product sales including desktop applications, server software, and developer tools. Products are available as subscriptions (monthly/annual) or perpetual licenses with pricing based on user count or organization.
- Training Services: Focused training courses on adopting open data standards in organizations
- Professional Services: Services including metadata consulting, metadata preparation, custom development, deployment, and maintenance plans
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | Designer Monthly - $65 per month |
| Subscription | Annual | Designer Annually - $59 per month billed yearly |
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | Site License - Contact for quotes |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Excel Standard - Free |
| Subscription | Annual | Excel Professional Annual - $1 per month billed yearly |
| One time/ perpetual license | Pay-as-you-go | Excel Professional Perpetual - $49 one time |
| Subscription | Annual | Colectica Questionnaires - $695 per user per year |
| Subscription | Annual | Colectica Questionnaires with Blaise - $995 per user per year |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels8 records
Colectica product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Colectica develops and sells a metadata documentation and management software platform built on the DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) open standard. The platform includes desktop applications for designing surveys and documenting data (Designer, Questionnaires, Reader, for Excel), server-based infrastructure for centralized metadata storage and publication (Repository, Portal, Workflow Services, RDF Services), developer tools (C# SDK, Toolkit), and institutional solutions (Fusion, Curation Tools). It is targeted at statistical agencies, survey research groups, public opinion research organizations, and data archivists needing standards-based data documentation.
Product overview
Colectica is a comprehensive metadata documentation platform organized as a platform-plus-modules architecture. The core offering consists of desktop applications including Colectica Reader (free DDI viewer), Colectica Designer (data documentation at $59-65/month), Colectica Questionnaires (visual survey designer at $695/year), and Colectica for Excel (free standard, $1/month professional). Server products include Colectica Repository (centralized storage with multi-user workflows), Colectica Portal (web publication and discovery), and Colectica Workflow Services (publication approval workflows). Developer tools comprise the C# SDK (NuGet-distributed), Toolkit (command-line batch processing), and RDF Services (SPARQL endpoint). Institutional solutions include Colectica Fusion (customized bundle) and Colectica Curation Tools (data archive workflow with automated tasks). The entire platform is built on open data standards including DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) 3 and ISO/PAS 25955:2026, enabling statistical agencies, survey research groups, data archivists, and research institutions to design, document, and publish statistical data using standards-based metadata.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Colectica Platform: Comprehensive metadata documentation and management platform for statistical data and survey research using open data standards
- Colectica Curation Tools
- Colectica SDK
Products and services
- Colectica Reader Free DDI 3 viewer tool for Microsoft Windows that displays DDI 3 metadata with syntax highlighting and hierarchical folding, performs multilevel validation against the DDI 3 XML schema, and ensures all references point to existing items. For data documentation professionals who need to read and validate DDI metadata.
- Colectica Designer Desktop application for documenting data collection, survey specifications, and dataset descriptions with full DDI 3 support. Can be used with Colectica Repository for multi-user collaboration, version management, and synchronized publishing. Priced at $65/month or $59/month billed annually, with enterprise site license options. For data professionals documenting surveys and datasets.
- Colectica Questionnaires Visual survey designer allowing specification of surveys once with multiple output formats. Features include visual survey design without programming experience, question banks for reuse, and outputs including PDF specifications, paper forms, Blaise 5 instruments, and standardized DDI XML. Priced at $695 per user per year (standard) and $995 per user per year (with Blaise integration). For survey designers and research organizations.
- Colectica for Excel Microsoft Excel add-in bringing standards-based data documentation to Excel workbooks. Standard Edition (free) documents datasets, variables, and publishes DDI-Lifecycle metadata. Professional Edition ($1/month billed annually or $49 perpetual) adds direct importing of SPSS, Stata, and SAS data files into documented Excel files. For Excel users who need DDI-compliant metadata.
- Colectica Repository Centralized metadata storage system for managing data resources with multi-user workflows, automatic version control, multilingual support, and configurable security. Supports deployment on Windows, Linux, or Docker with database options and authentication methods including OAuth2 OIDC, Active Directory, and Azure Active Directory. For enterprise metadata management.
- Colectica Portal
Quantifiable outcome
- Reduces documentation effort through reusable metadata and automated outputs
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Colectica
Customer profileNamed customers1 record
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Colectica technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration15 records
Feature10 records
Colectica partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- Statistics NetherlandscoreColectica is the official distributor for Statistics Netherlands' Blaise Survey System in the United States. Blaise is a survey system used for data capture and questionnaire management in statistical organizations worldwide.
- DDI AlliancecoreThe DDI Alliance maintains the DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) standard, an international open standard for describing research data. Colectica is built from the ground up around DDI standards with native DDI-Lifecycle storage. DDI was formally recognized as ISO/PAS 25955:2026 in March 2026.
- MicrosoftcoreColectica products are built for Windows environments, integrate with Microsoft Excel, and support Visual Studio development through the SDK. Colectica for Excel works with Microsoft Excel 2007 SP3 through 2021 and desktop 365. The SDK supports Visual Studio with NuGet deployment.
Scale indicators1 record
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Colectica competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- SAS: Enterprise analytics and statistical platform broadly deployed in government statistical agencies. Colectica natively imports SAS data files and code lists, with the two products often co-deployed where SAS handles analysis and Colectica handles standards-based documentation.
- Alation: Enterprise data catalog and governance platform increasingly expanding into metadata, lineage, and data documentation. Targets enterprise data teams with broader governance needs than statistical agencies but increasingly overlaps with Colectica's metadata and catalog value proposition.
- Collibra: Enterprise data intelligence and governance platform providing data catalog, lineage, and stewardship capabilities. Operates in adjacent data governance territory to Colectica, with broader enterprise focus but overlapping metadata management functionality for organizations considering consolidated governance tooling.
- Stata: Statistical analysis software widely used in academic, government, and survey research. Stata's .dta files are directly imported and documented by Colectica, and Stata is a complementary tool in the same statistical research workflow that Colectica's data documentation platform supports.
- IBM SPSS Statistics: Long-established statistical analysis software with native .sav data files that Colectica imports and documents. Targets many of the same statistical agencies and social science research organizations, and represents a complementary statistical engine in the same research workflow that Colectica documents.
Direct peers
- Qualtrics: Enterprise survey platform used heavily in academic, market, and public opinion research. Targets the same survey research and institutional customer base as Colectica's Questionnaires and Portal offerings, though positioned more broadly across commercial market research.
- REDCap: Open source research data capture and survey platform built at Vanderbilt and widely deployed across academic medical centers and statistical agencies. Directly comparable to Colectica in its targeting of survey research and statistical documentation workflows, with overlap on questionnaire-to-DDI generation and study specification management.
- Zenodo: CERN-hosted open research data repository used widely for publishing datasets with associated metadata. Overlaps with Colectica Portal and Curation Tools as a destination platform for documented statistical data and survey research outputs.
- Dataverse: Open source research data repository originating from Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Directly competes with Colectica Repository and Portal for institutional data documentation, archiving, and publication workloads among academic and statistical research organizations.
Emerging players
- Open Data Kit (ODK): Open source mobile data collection platform used for field survey and statistical data capture in research and humanitarian settings. Comparable to Colectica Questionnaires and Blaise integrations in serving survey research and statistical data collection, though focused on mobile/field deployments.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights9 records
Customer concentration
Colectica social profiles
Digital presenceColectica financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Colectica leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Colectica funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds4 records
Investors3 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Colectica M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Colectica
What does Colectica do?
Colectica develops and sells a metadata documentation and management software platform built on the DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) open standard. The platform includes desktop applications for designing surveys and documenting data (Designer, Questionnaires, Reader, for Excel), server-based infrastructure for centralized metadata storage and publication (Repository, Portal, Workflow Services, RDF Services), developer tools (C# SDK, Toolkit), and institutional solutions (Fusion, Curation Tools). It is targeted at statistical agencies, survey research groups, public opinion research organizations, and data archivists needing standards-based data documentation.
Is Colectica a public or private company?
Colectica is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Colectica founded?
Colectica was founded in 2006. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Colectica based?
Colectica is headquartered in Minneapolis, United States, in the North America region.
How does Colectica make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Software Licenses and Subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are training Services and professional Services.
Who are Colectica's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are SAS, Alation, Collibra, Stata and IBM SPSS Statistics. Direct peers are Qualtrics, REDCap, Zenodo and Dataverse. Open Data Kit (ODK) is listed as an emerging player.
Does Colectica have an API?
Yes. Colectica Repository includes a REST API for web services. The API supports search operations, retrieving items, and relationship-based searches. Developers can use the API to programmatically interact with metadata stored in Colectica Repository, enabling integration with external applications and custom workflows. Developer documentation is at docs.colectica.com/repository/functionality/rest-api.
What industry is Colectica in?
Colectica's product category is Research Data Management Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEABAH, Data Sharing, Data Exchange & Data Marketplace Platforms, with a secondary code of HDAEADAB, Data Governance Platforms (Policies, Stewardship, Workflows). Its NAICS code is 513210 and its SIC code is 7372.