TrendMD
TrendMD provides a content recommendation engine for scholarly publishers and pharma advertisers across a network of 9,600+ medical and scientific sites, reaching 120M+ monthly unique researchers and healthcare professionals through a freemium widget and usage-based paid promotion.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2013
- HeadquartersWilmington, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What TrendMD does
TrendMD operates an AI-powered content recommendation engine for scholarly publishers and pharmaceutical advertisers. The company's core product is a lightweight free widget (2 lines of code) that publishers install on article pages; the widget surfaces related scholarly content using a collaborative filtering algorithm combined with semantic relatedness, learning from anonymized clickstream data across the network. TrendMD processes 500M+ monthly article recommendations across a network of 9,600+ medical and scientific sites reaching 120M+ monthly unique researchers and healthcare professionals (90% of US HCPs). The platform's network effect is the central architectural feature: each additional publisher enlarges the recommendation corpus and improves algorithmic accuracy, while a credit-based traffic exchange system (0.5 credits earned per third-party click, 1 credit spent per outbound visitor) balances promotion across participants.
TrendMD firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- TrendMD
- Legal name
- TrendMD Inc.
- Website
- https://trendmd.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2013
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- TrendMD provides a content recommendation engine for scholarly publishers and pharma advertisers across a network of 9,600+ medical and scientific sites, reaching 120M+ monthly unique researchers and healthcare professionals through a freemium widget and usage-based paid promotion.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
TrendMD industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Scholarly Content Recommendation Platform
- NAICS
- Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (5192), Media Buying Agencies (541830)
- SIC
- Services-Advertising (7310), Services-Advertising Agencies (7311)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Topic/Interest-Based Content Discovery Apps (MPACAKAB)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Medical, Clinical & Biomedical Scholarly Publishing (EDAGAFAB)
Keywords
Where TrendMD is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Wilmington
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
TrendMD business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Credit-based Traffic Promotion: Publishers earn credits when their readers click third-party recommendations (0.5 credits/click) and spend credits to promote their content across the network (1 credit/visitor). Publishers with positive credit balance have their content recommended across all 9,600+ sites. Higher monthly spend results in lower cost per visitor, with volume discounts.
- Free Widget (Freemium): Free widget recommendation engine for publishers. Generates organic traffic through internal recommendations on publisher sites and cross-publisher recommendations. Publishers can earn credits that can be reinvested for paid promotion. This freemium model drives network adoption and creates switching costs.
- Pharma/Life Sciences CPC Campaigns: Cost-per-click campaigns for pharma and life sciences companies to reach healthcare professionals. Supports targeting by therapeutic area, HCP specialty, content topic, geo-location, and institutional affiliation. Quote-based pricing with customizable budgets.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free recommendation widget with organic traffic generation |
| Usage-based | Monthly | Paid promotion across 9,600+ medical and scientific sites |
| Hybrid | Monthly | Enterprise/custom pricing for large publishers |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | Cost-per-click campaigns for pharma and life sciences |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels5 records
TrendMD product offering
Product offeringCore offering
TrendMD provides a content recommendation engine and widget for scholarly publishers, enabling cross-publisher article discovery on a network of 9,600+ medical and scientific sites. Publishers install a free 2-line code widget to surface related articles to readers; paid campaigns and a credit-based traffic exchange system extend reach across the network. The platform also offers targeted cost-per-click campaigns for pharmaceutical and life sciences companies to reach healthcare professionals.
Product overview
TrendMD operates as a content recommendation platform combining a free embedded widget with paid promotional options across a cross-publisher network. The core product is the TrendMD Recommendation Widget—a free JavaScript-based widget (2 lines of code) that publishers install on article pages to recommend related scholarly content using collaborative filtering. The widget is powered by TrendMD's credit-based traffic exchange system where publishers earn credits when their readers click third-party content and spend credits when external readers click their content. Paid campaigns extend reach beyond the free widget by promoting sponsored articles across the entire network of 9,600+ medical and scientific sites. The platform also includes a publisher dashboard for analytics, Editor's Choice labeling for featured content, and specialized Pharma & HCP targeting modules for pharmaceutical campaigns.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- TrendMD Recommendation Widget A free content recommendation widget installed on publisher websites that recommends relevant scholarly articles to readers using collaborative filtering and semantic relatedness algorithms. Typically increases article pageviews by 3-5% at no cost. At least half of recommendations come from the publisher's own content.
- Paid Campaign Promotion Paid promotion option allowing publishers to promote articles across TrendMD's network of 9,600+ medical and scientific sites and 120M+ monthly unique researchers and HCPs. Publishers set monthly budgets and are charged per visitor. Includes article-level metrics optimization for which content gets promoted and where.
- TrendMD Dashboard Publisher dashboard providing campaign setup, monitoring, and analytics. Tracks additional visitors acquired, additional pageviews generated, and credits earned from third-party sponsored links. Includes Google Analytics integration for deeper campaign tracking.
- Pharma & Life Sciences Campaigns Targeted content promotion for pharmaceutical and life sciences companies to reach healthcare professionals across the scholarly network. Supports cost-per-click pricing with targeting by therapeutic area, HCP specialty, geo-location, institutional affiliation, or content topic.
- Professional Plan Paid tier enabling publishers to use larger sites to boost traffic volume to smaller or newer journals through targeted sponsoring or 'traffic shaping.' Allows prioritization of content distribution across the network.
Quantifiable outcome
- 50% increase in mean citations at 12 months (vs control, n=3,200 articles, p<.001)
- +7 more outcomes
Companies that use TrendMD
Customer profileNamed customers13 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
TrendMD technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration2 records
AI capability5 records
Feature4 records
TrendMD partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Six partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- IngentacorePartnership announced May 2016 integrating TrendMD recommendations into Ingenta Connect platform. Added 96 journals and 65,000 articles to the network. Referred visitors from TrendMD averaged 2.2 articles per session with 38% downloading full-text articles. 7.5 million article impressions delivered during pilot.
- Royal SocietycoreRoyal Society journals (9 peer-reviewed journals) fully integrated into TrendMD network following successful pilot with Royal Society Open Science. Established in 1665, adds high-quality scientific content to the network spanning biological, physical, and multidisciplinary sciences.
- AAAScoreAAAS joined TrendMD network in March 2017, adding Science and related publications to the network.
- De GruyterminorDe Gruyter joined TrendMD network in March 2017, expanding scholarly content in the network.
- Springer NaturecoreSpringer Nature uses TrendMD for campaigns, demonstrating superior engagement vs social media. Senior Marketing Manager Adam Carew endorses TrendMD for increasing exposure and engagement with research papers.
- ElseviercoreElsevier is a major publisher using TrendMD across multiple brands including JMIR, PracticeUpdate, and Clinics Review Articles. Demonstrated case studies show 49% pageview increases, 7.9% HCP conversion rates, and 500%+ ROI.
Scale indicators16 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
TrendMD competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- ResearchGate: Scholarly network that surfaces and recommends research to researchers and monetizes via pharma/scientific marketing, overlapping with TrendMD on both article discovery and HCP/researcher advertising reach.
- Researcher (Researcher App): Article-feed discovery product that recommends new scholarly papers to academics and reaches researcher/HCP audiences, directly comparable to TrendMD's content recommendation and audience reach.
- Kudos: Provides tools for researchers and publishers to increase the reach and impact of published research; like TrendMD it helps publishers drive additional traffic to publications, and it integrates directly with TrendMD.
Broad incumbents
- Taboola: Content-discovery and native-advertising network using on-page recommendation widgets and paid distribution, structurally similar to TrendMD's freemium widget plus paid campaign model.
- Semantic Scholar: Large AI-powered scholarly search and recommendation service (Allen Institute) for discovering related research, overlapping with TrendMD's semantic and collaborative-filtering discovery for academic content.
- Outbrain: Operates embedded content-recommendation widgets and a cross-publisher traffic/credit network monetized via paid promotion, the same core mechanic as TrendMD but in consumer rather than scholarly media.
- Medscape (WebMD): Established medical content and HCP-engagement platform that sells pharma advertising and education to clinicians, competing for the same pharma budgets TrendMD targets through HCP-directed campaigns.
Emerging players
- Doximity: US HCP network monetizing pharma marketing and content distribution to physicians, overlapping with TrendMD's pharma/life-sciences segment of reaching healthcare professionals in relevant contexts.
- Altmetric (Digital Science): Measures and surfaces research attention and impact for publishers and institutions, comparable to TrendMD's value proposition of boosting article visibility and demonstrating measurable research impact.
- scite.ai: AI-driven scholarly discovery and citation-analysis platform serving researchers and publishers, overlapping with TrendMD's focus on improving article discoverability and citation impact.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
TrendMD social profiles
Digital presenceTrendMD compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
TrendMD financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
TrendMD leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles7 records
TrendMD funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds4 records
Investors12 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
TrendMD 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 TrendMD
What does TrendMD do?
TrendMD provides a content recommendation engine and widget for scholarly publishers, enabling cross-publisher article discovery on a network of 9,600+ medical and scientific sites. Publishers install a free 2-line code widget to surface related articles to readers; paid campaigns and a credit-based traffic exchange system extend reach across the network. The platform also offers targeted cost-per-click campaigns for pharmaceutical and life sciences companies to reach healthcare professionals.
Is TrendMD a public or private company?
TrendMD is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was TrendMD founded?
TrendMD was founded in 2013. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is TrendMD based?
TrendMD is headquartered in Wilmington, United States, in the North America region.
How does TrendMD make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Credit-based Traffic Promotion is the primary driver. The others are free Widget (Freemium) and pharma/Life Sciences CPC Campaigns.
Who are TrendMD's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are ResearchGate, Researcher (Researcher App) and Kudos. Broad incumbents are Taboola, Semantic Scholar, Outbrain and Medscape (WebMD). Emerging players are Doximity, Altmetric (Digital Science) and scite.ai.
Does TrendMD have an API?
No public API is recorded for TrendMD.
What industry is TrendMD in?
TrendMD's product category is Scholarly Content Recommendation Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPACAKAB, Topic/Interest-Based Content Discovery Apps, with a secondary code of EDAGAFAB, Medical, Clinical & Biomedical Scholarly Publishing. Its NAICS code is 5192 and its SIC code is 7310.