CambridgeSoft

About CambridgeSoft

In 1984, before drawing a chemical structure required anything more than a drafting board, the introduction of the Apple Macintosh sparked an idea. Sally Evans, a former teacher turned graphic designer for her husband, Harvard chemistry professor David Evans, grew tired of the time-consuming process of drawing complex molecules by hand. Seeing the potential in the new Mac, the Evanses enlisted Harvard Ph.D. student Stewart Rubenstein to help create a specialized drawing program. After a successful demonstration at a scientific conference in 1985, CambridgeSoft was formally founded in 1986 by Rubenstein and his brother Michael to commercialize the revolutionary software, ChemDraw. The company’s core product, ChemDraw, fundamentally changed how chemists worked, allowing them to create, analyze, and share scientific information with unprecedented ease. Building on this success, CambridgeSoft expanded its offerings to include a suite of software for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and chemical industries, such as Chem3D for 3D modeling. The company grew, attracting institutional investment, including a significant $31.3 million funding round in 2009 led by Goldman Sachs. The major playbook move came in 2011 when PerkinElmer, a global leader in scientific instruments, announced its acquisition of CambridgeSoft. The deal, part of a combined $220 million acquisition with ArtusLabs, was designed to enhance PerkinElmer's focus on informatics and knowledge management in laboratory settings. This event marked the end of CambridgeSoft as an independent entity but solidified its software's legacy as an indispensable tool in the world of chemical and life sciences research.