Inside Business Insider’s research arm

Shan Wang of Nieman Lab writes about Business Insider’s research operation.

Wang writes, “BI Intelligence, the company’s paid subscription research service, is aiming big as well. It has over 5,000 paying subscribers across its suite of offerings, it says, with around 30 dedicated staffers. It’s expanding its team, including hiring for a director of research to manage its portfolio for what it’s describing as an ‘international research company.’ Intelligence’s staff and its number of corporate clients have each doubled in the last year, according to BI’s spokesperson. He declined to share more specific numbers but said the company’s research arm saw a 200 percent increase in revenue over the past year.

“‘I’m closing in on a year here, but even before I joined Henry [Blodget] and Julie [Hansen] sensed a real business opportunity with Business Insider Intelligence,’ said Andrew Sollinger, executive vice president of subscriptions at Business Insider who runs BI Intelligence. ‘The concept is to supplement all the great work with a focused premium subscription, keyed in on various areas of digital disruption, and certainly how tech is slamming into every industry and turning them upside down.’

“Sollinger joined Business Insider last year from Capital New York (pre-Politico rebrand), and is tasked also with implementing new paid content strategies at BI, which includes some form of a subscription component for the currently free site; Politico reports that’s coming sometime this year. The BI newsroom and the Intelligence arm are separate, and Intelligence revenue goes ‘back into the whole company.'”

Read more here.