Foundation Story

In November 2001, while visiting Japan, Abhishek Goel met a researcher who sought his help in refining the language of his research paper. Abhishek, who was studying business at that time, refused since he felt he wouldn’t be able to do justice to a scientific paper. But the researcher insisted. Abhishek eventually agreed, and the researcher gave him a”fee” of 10,000 yen in advance. Many months later, when Abhishek and his brother Anurag were exploring businesses they could start, Abhishek remembered this incident.

Here was a person willing to pay a non-specialist stranger for a service that did not quite exist. They felt there might be many more researchers who have this need. This led to the genesis of Cactus Communications in 2002, with Editage becoming the first business brand aimed at providing academic English editing services to authors worldwide.

The brothers played on their strengths to build CACTUS: Anurag as a growth-oriented strategist who pushed the team to scale up, and Abhishek as a mission-oriented leader who focused on building relationships and understanding the needs of the customers. But they had a common mission – to create an organization that is always growing and allows employees to demonstrate their uniqueness and reach their potential.

Anurag and Abhishek initially wanted to build a company that specialized in English language services, and in the first five years, they added verticals such as English education, transcription, and translation towards this end. But they soon realized the growing need for technical assistance and consultation in the academic and medical fields. In 2009, Anurag and Abhishek shared CACTUS’s corporate vision and restructured the business verticals to become a service provider to two important customer segments: Academia and Life Sciences.

Today, CACTUS boasts close to 1,000 in-house employees and a pool of over 3,000 subject-matter experts, professional medical writers, science communicators, designers, and engineers, providing tailormade solutions to customers across 191 countries under four business brands: Editage, Impact Science, Cactus Life Sciences, and PubSURE. It has a global presence, with offices in London, Princeton, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

In the almost two decades since CACTUS was established, the landscape of academia and life sciences has changed drastically. Emerging economies have invested heavily in science and technology, thereby accelerating competition in global research as well as international collaboration. At the same time, scientists, doctors, and research organizations are emphasizing the need for sustainability and for creating a more significant and visible impact on society. However, the traditional scientific ecosystem has not been able to keep up with this increase in research publications and cross-sector collaborations.

The founders realized that technology was going to be key in the science landscape and established the company’s first technology division in 2010. CACTUS launched its homegrown workflow management system in 2013, and since 2018, CACTUS has been developing technology products and platform solutions and incubating technology startups to support innovation. In 2019, CACTUS launched PubSURE, the first-ever AI-powered research paper marketplace.

To accelerate the company’s transformation, in 2018, Anurag took on the role of chairman to focus on the corporate strategy and Abhishek took office as CEO.

Growing the business and building a strong corporate culture have been inseparable aspects at CACTUS. CACTUS has always given equal importance to customer satisfaction and employee growth.

CACTUS attracts talent – individuals who wish to help scientists and professionals realize their ideas – from across the world and has always strived to be an organization that is inclusive. In 2017, CACTUS was ranked #1 as a Great Place to Work (small and mid-size companies). In 2019, it was named among the Top 20 Companies for Remote Jobs, recognized as one of the Best Companies for Millennials, and was among the Top 10 Safe Places to Work.