Facter
Facter (facter.io), operated by Swiss GmbH KneeSearch, is a free, ad-supported mobile and web platform that aggregates medical and scientific journal content from 15+ publishers, targeting scientists, medical professionals, and science-interested general consumers with keyword-driven feeds and full-text search.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2016
- HeadquartersBern, Switzerland
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Facter does
Facter (legal entity: KneeSearch GmbH, headquartered in Pierrafortscha, Switzerland) operates facter.io, a free consumer-grade platform for discovering and reading medical and scientific research. The product is delivered as iOS and Android mobile apps and a synchronized web platform (web.facter.io, accessed via QR-code login) and targets scientists, academics, medical professionals, and science-interested general consumers who need to monitor scholarly publications across multiple journals.
The underlying technology is an intelligent search engine that crawls related medical journals on a daily basis, compiles relevant content into short, information-rich overviews, and exposes them through a keyword-centric personalized feed with full-text search across aggregated documents. Content is aggregated from 15+ major scientific publishers and databases, including PubMed, Cambridge University Press, Scientific Reports, ACS, Elsevier, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, RSC, BMJ, IEEE, PLOS, PNAS, Oxford University Press, and Science AAAS. The platform also layers community features — following scholars, commenting, rating, and sharing — designed to support network effects within research communities.
Facter's business model is advertising-supported and entirely free to end users, with no paid tiers, subscriptions, or premium features. Distribution is product-led growth via the App Store and Google Play, supplemented by organic social channels (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). The platform originated as a co-development project between the Foundation Lindenhof Bern and the Knee Surgery Research Group of Sonnenhof Orthopaedic Centre, Bern, providing medical and orthopaedic domain expertise. No external venture funding, parent entity, or enterprise revenue stream is disclosed.
Facter firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Facter
- Legal name
- KneeSearch GmbH
- Website
- https://facter.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2016
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Facter (facter.io), operated by Swiss GmbH KneeSearch, is a free, ad-supported mobile and web platform that aggregates medical and scientific journal content from 15+ publishers, targeting scientists, medical professionals, and science-interested general consumers with keyword-driven feeds and full-text search.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Facter industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Scientific Research Aggregation Platform
- NAICS
- Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (519)
- SIC
- Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Topic/Interest-Based Content Discovery Apps (MPACAKAB)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Content Curation & Bookmarking/Read-Later Platforms (MPACAKAH), RSS/Feed Readers & Subscription Aggregators (MPACAKAD)
Keywords
Where Facter is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Bern
- HQ country
- Switzerland
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Facter business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Free Platform with Advertising: facter.io is free to install and always free to use. The Privacy Policy states 'Our Services are supported by advertising,' indicating an advertising-supported revenue model where ads are placed on the platform and in connection with the display of content.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Free Access - No paid tiers available |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels5 records
Facter product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Facter.io is a free cross-platform application (iOS, Android, and web) that aggregates scientific and medical journal content from more than 15 major publishers into a single keyword-driven personalized feed. Its intelligent search engine crawls medical journals daily, compiles information-rich overviews, and offers full-text search, keyword following, push notifications, and social engagement features for users.
Product overview
Facter.io is a unified scientific and medical research platform that aggregates content from medical journals and publications. The core product, Facter.io, provides a mobile app (iOS and Android) and web platform (web.facter.io) that enables users to search topics, follow keywords of interest, and receive notifications when new publications match their interests. The platform connects users with like-minded scholars and delivers information-rich summaries compiled from crawled medical journals.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Facter.io Facter.io is a free cross-platform scientific and medical research reading application (iOS, Android, and web) that aggregates journal and publication content from 15+ trusted publishers. It offers keyword-based personalized feeds, full-text search, daily journal crawling with compiled overviews, push notifications, and social features (comment, rate, share, follow scholars) for scientists, academics, healthcare professionals, and science-curious consumers.
Companies that use Facter
Customer profileSegments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Facter technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature4 records
Facter partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- Foundation Lindenhof BerncoreFoundation Lindenhof Bern is a co-development partner in the facter.io project. The platform is described as a 'Common project' of the Foundation Lindenhof Bern and the Knee Surgery Research Group of Sonnenhof Orthopaedic Centre, indicating a strategic partnership focused on medical and orthopedic research content.
- Knee Surgery Research Group of Sonnenhof Orthopaedic CentrecoreThe Knee Surgery Research Group of Sonnenhof Orthopaedic Centre in Bern is a co-development partner in facter.io. Together with the Foundation Lindenhof Bern, this research group developed the platform as a common project, providing domain expertise in orthopaedics and medical research.
Scale indicators1 record
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Facter competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- ResearchGate: Social network for scientists and academics that aggregates publications, enables following and discussion, and provides discovery across scientific literature. Closely aligned with Facter's community-led, keyword-following model for researchers.
- Semantic Scholar: AI-powered scientific literature search and discovery platform from the Allen Institute for AI. Directly comparable on aggregated scientific content, full-text search, and personalized feeds for researchers.
- SciSpace (Typeset): Research discovery and reading platform that aggregates papers from multiple publishers and provides summaries, similar to Facter's daily crawling and information-rich overview positioning.
- ReadCube: Reference manager and PDF reading platform with aggregated content from publishers, social feeds, and personalized recommendations. Comparable on cross-publisher content access and researcher workflows.
Broad incumbents
- Dimensions (Digital Science): Linked research database that aggregates publications, grants, patents, and citations. Comparable aggregator with enterprise focus for institutions, contrasting Facter's free consumer orientation.
- PubMed: Free, government-run biomedical literature search engine from the NLM. A primary source itself for Facter and the default destination for many medical researchers, representing an upstream incumbent.
- Google Scholar: Dominant free academic search engine indexing peer-reviewed papers, theses, and abstracts. Serves the same researchers but with vastly broader coverage, brand recognition, and resources.
Emerging players
- Scitrus: Personalized feed of trending scientific papers with keyword following and full-text search, very directly comparable to Facter's keyword-centric design and daily updated scholarly feed.
- Connected Papers: Visual tool for researchers to find related scientific papers, focused on a single use case (paper-to-paper similarity) rather than full-content aggregation, but addresses the same researcher audience.
- Scite: AI-driven platform that classifies scientific citations and shows how papers are cited. Targets the same researcher audience and competes in research discovery, though with a distinct citation-intelligence angle.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Facter social profiles
Digital presenceFacter financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Facter leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Facter funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Facter 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 Facter
What does Facter do?
Facter.io is a free cross-platform application (iOS, Android, and web) that aggregates scientific and medical journal content from more than 15 major publishers into a single keyword-driven personalized feed. Its intelligent search engine crawls medical journals daily, compiles information-rich overviews, and offers full-text search, keyword following, push notifications, and social engagement features for users.
Is Facter a public or private company?
Facter is a private company. It is classified as unknown and is currently operating.
When was Facter founded?
Facter was founded in 2016. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Facter based?
Facter is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland, in the Europe region.
How does Facter make money?
One revenue line is on record: free Platform with Advertising.
Who are Facter's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are ResearchGate, Semantic Scholar, SciSpace (Typeset) and ReadCube. Broad incumbents are Dimensions (Digital Science), PubMed and Google Scholar. Emerging players are Scitrus, Connected Papers and Scite.
Does Facter have an API?
No public API is recorded for Facter.
What industry is Facter in?
Facter's product category is Scientific Research Aggregation Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPACAKAB, Topic/Interest-Based Content Discovery Apps, with a secondary code of MPACAKAH, Content Curation & Bookmarking/Read-Later Platforms. Its NAICS code is 519 and its SIC code is 2741.