Lawyers, insurers, and lenders paid for NIC's state websites, one small fee at a time. The Kansas company offered states a simple deal. It would build and run their official websites at no upfront cost. It would earn its money from fees on services like driving records and business filings. In 1999 most dealings with a state still meant a line at an office counter. NIC went public that July with several states signed up.

Free to Kansas

Jeffery Fraser started the business in Kansas in the early 1990s as the Kansas Information Consortium. The model paid for itself. A state gave NIC a contract, and NIC paid to build the portal. Fees from frequent users, often lawyers, insurers, and lenders, covered the cost. That removed the biggest obstacle for state agencies, which rarely had technology budgets to spare. Each new state contract became a long-running source of revenue.

Quiet Growth, State by State

NIC priced its offering at $12 a share in July 1999. Like many internet stocks, it fell hard in 2000. The business underneath kept growing. State by state, NIC added portals and services, betting that public services would follow commerce onto the web. In the end it ran official websites for a large share of American states. In 2021 Tyler Technologies, a maker of software for local governments, bought NIC for about $2.3 billion.

Cover: State Capitol at Montpelier, VT., George Watson. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a state capitol (government online).