Chemdex Corporation, later known as Ventro Corporation and then NexPrise, Inc., was a B2B e-commerce company that first operated an online marketplace for products related to the life sciences industry such as laboratory chemicals, enzymes, and equipment, but later expanded into a few other industries.

The company was founded in September 1997 by David Perry, a mid-level oil refinery manager at Exxon whose business plan won 2nd place in a Harvard University competition.

[4] The company raised $45 million in venture capital funding from Genentech founder Robert A. Swanson, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and CMGI.

In December 1999, the company acquired SpecialityMD.com for $115 million in stock and formed a joint venture with Tenet Healthcare.

[1] The company changed its business plan to be a provider of cloud-based enterprise content management solutions.