ValueStar /Service Ratings, LLC. is privately owned.  The company acquired the assets of the publicly traded ValueStar Corporation (NASDAQ symbol VLST) in December 2001 after that company was unable to complete a financing required for a national marketing campaign in fall 2001.  ValueStar Corporation was founded in Oakland, CA in 1992 and migrated its ValueStar Customer-Rated program to the Internet in the late 1990's,  leveraging roughly $40 million in prior venture funding to build IT infrastructure and recruit service businesses to the program.  Prior to its sale in late 2001,  the ValueStar Customer-Rated program had 7200 businesses participating in eight major metro markets,  and partnerships with credit card issuers representing 49 million credit card accounts and merchant card services banks representing 110,000 businesses.

Service Ratings raised private financing in 2005,  and in 2006 re-launched ValueStar with the testing of an updated Customer-Rated program in the Bay Area.  In late 2008,  ValueStar expanded that testing to the Washington,  DC metro area.  With the issuance of the company's key patent in mid-2010,  the company shifted its focus away from its beta-test sales and marketing efforts under the ValueStar name and commenced licensing its technologies to selected players in the Small and Medium-sized Business marketing space,  including ratings and reviews publishers, business directories,  and search engines.

Lou Morsberger, Service Ratings' Co-founder, has a track record of leadership in fast-growing,  industry-changing companies in the consumer services realm.  Prior to joining Service Ratings, Lou was the head of Internet cross-selling for Capital One Financial,  the 5th-largest issuer of Visa and MasterCard in the United States and a leader in database marketing techniques.  From 1995 through 1998, he was with Circuit City Stores,  serving ultimately as regional General Manager for the company's mid-Atlantic operations where he led a dramatic turnaround in the region's customer satisfaction.  His role at Circuit City was preceded by his efforts as head of planning for Fresh Fields Markets,  a pioneer in the healthy foods grocery category,  which was acquired by Whole Foods. Earlier in his career, Lou was an associate with the Boston Consulting Group where he focused on information-based marketing.  He received his B.A. from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School .