Marcus Cent has a 13 year track record in using the Internet as a business tool. He created web agency, Marcat in 1997, steering the company to 3 consecutive entries in the Deloitte and Touche Fast 50 technology companies. He was also a runner up in the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in 2001. In 2003, Marcus founded Clearfuse as a specialist provider of online ticketing and booking applications. Marcus created Affiliata in 2004 as a vehicle to own and manage a number of affiliate marketing projects and joint venture operations. Affiliata became Clickspace in 2006. Clickspace merged with Dubai-based Forsight in 2008 to form DistinctMEDIA. As Managing Director, Marcus steered the company to year 1 revenues of more than $26m. Marcus is now based in Dubai running both DistinctMEDIA and iBooking.com from offices in the Dubai Media City.

A brief history of Marcus’s work life…

Currently

DistinctMEDIA
Managing Director of DistinctMEDIA Ltd. DistinctMEDIA was formed in October 2008 from the merger of web search specialists, Forsight Ltd, with price comparison specialists, Clickspace Ltd. The company owns and operates a network of price comparison and vertical content web sites in the UK, USA, Europe & Australia. The business generates millions of $s, £s and €s for global online leaders including Yahoo, Infospace, Pricegrabber, Pricerunner and many more. The core competence is to drive large volumes of high quality traffic to advertisers and merchants. DistinctMEDIA has 35 staff across 3 continents with a management team including industry veterans from the online and retail sectors. First year turnover was more than $26m with profits in excess of £4.2m.

iBooking.com
Managing Director, iBooking.com Ltd. Since 2003 iBooking has focussed on the development of a range of web-based online booking and ticketing products for the tourism, travel and hospitality sector. The company operates from Scotland, UK and Dubai, UAE with customers worldwide using solutions that enable direct booking and ticketing from the company web site. More details at http://www.ibooking.com

Past

1996 – Created Marcat Multimedia in Glasgow. Quickly gained a reputation for focussing on business use of the Internet. Grew from one man in an office, to a team of 6 2 years later. Moved to a bigger office and grew to around 16. Brought in some money men, and expertise to help grow the business to approx. 30 staff in 2001. Left in 2002 to focus on new projects.

1997 – As an offshoot of Marcat, created On the Spot Internet to specialise in domain names and web hosting. Now ably run by Stefan Cent, On the Spot is still going strong, maintaining many of the original customers nearly 10 years later!. See www.onthespot.co.uk.

2002 – Created Clearfuse as a provider of web applications and online business solutions. The move to focus on web applications for online ticketing and booking resulted in the company being renamed as iBooking in 2006. See www.ibooking.com

2003 – First started dabbling in affiliate marketing, learning how to exploit Google’s newly launched AdSense product. Initially started as a side interest making a few dollars per day, but quickly became an obsession and evolved into a money-making machine reaching peak earnings of $120,000 a month. Business vehicle affiliata.com created and later relaunched as Clickspace Ltd.

2004 – Helped to launch clearclick Restaurant, an online booking and customer management solution for restaurants. The company is now renamed restaurantdiary.com. Marcus remains a shareholder. The business is run by veteran restaurateur, Mike Conyers. See www.restaurantdiary.com

2004 – Marcus’s first company, Marcat Multimedia, latterly known as Marcat, further evolved to be known as Vamosa. The company is now focussed on the content migration marketplace and has recently opened a US office. Marcus remains a shareholder. See www.vamosa.com

2008 – Clickspace revenues grow to more than £5m annually run remotely by a team of around 8 people. In November of 2008, Clickspace merged with Dubai based, Forsight to become a global force in PPC and Price Comparison. Marcus relocates to Dubai and becomes MD of the newly named DistinctMEDIA.com.

Investments

Marcus continues to hold investment stakes in companies he founded or co-founded. These include;

Restaurantdiary.com
Vamosa.com