Isabel Maxwell

Isabel Sylvia Margaret Maxwell (born 16 August 1950) is a French-born entrepreneur and the co-founder of Magellan, an early search engine that was acquired by Excite.

Maxwell has been listed as a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum,[1] She served as the President of Commtouch, an Israeli internet company that became CYREN.

[4][2][5] She earned a master's degree in Education (French) from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland,[6] before beginning her career in film and television production.

[6] In 1981, Maxwell relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area[4] of California[7] in the United States[5] where she continued to produce and direct documentaries.

They co-produced the feature film '68 (released in 1988 by New World Pictures) and the 1982 PBS documentary, Bhutan – A Strange Survival, introduced by Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois and narrated by Ludovic Kennedy.

In 1990, Maxwell left the film industry,[4] moved to Berkeley, and began to work with her sister Christine at an internet data company.

Isabel joined twin sister Christine Maxwell who was leading a small company called Research on Demand that was online in 1993"[1]".

[9] In early 1996, the company was poised to IPO, but investment bank Robertson Stephens decided to put Excite on the market first.

Michael Wolfe's book Burn Rate also describes a failed deal to combine with Wolff New Media, which shortly later went broke itself.

[12] From 2003 to 2004, Maxwell was invited by Blumberg capital to become CEO of iCognito,[13] renamed Puresight, an Israeli web content filtering software company.