Find Your Partner When industry giants and dot.coms come together, it's profits that fly round and round.

Andrea Reisman had a problem--a huge, "Is this the end ofmy business?" crisis. Just a few weeks earlier, the30-year-old co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Petopia.com,an online pet supply store, had been on top of the world: She hadclosed a May 1999 venture financing round that pumped $9 millioninto her start-up. But then came June 14, and her world tiltedupside down when arch-competitor Pets.com announced it had closed a$50 million venture round that included cash from Amazon.com.Pets.com was simultaneously forming a strategic alliance with thee-commerce godfather. That meant visitors to Amazon.com would bepeppered with continual reminders to buy kitty litter and 100-poundbags of puppy chow at Pets.com.

More aggravation came when Petsmart--a billion-dollarbrick-and-mortar pet chain--announced it would merge its onlineoutlet with independent online store pet.net, thereby transformingPetsmart.com into a formidable and slick e-commerce player.

Was it lights out for Reisman and her Petopia? It more thanlikely could have been, because in today's bullet-pacede-commerce battlefield, there's no nostalgia foryesterday's leaders. But Reisman pulled a fabulous rabbit outof cyberspace and, in July, closed a $66 million funding roundincluding buckets of cash from pet store powerhouse Petco, whichagreed to give Petopia exclusivity--Petopia would be Petco'sonly online retailing outpost.