Quixey

Quixey was a company located in Mountain View, California. Quixey search, which it called "functional", allowed apps to be searched for by the actions the app can perform instead of requiring the user to know the name of the app.[1][2] In 2015, Quixey raised a $60 million investment round at a valuation of approximately $600 million.[3] Quixey shut down in February 2017.[4]

Quixey
TypePrivate
FoundedMountain View, California, United States (2009)
DefunctFebruary 2017 (2017-02)
Headquarters303 Bryant Street
Mountain View, California, CA
Key people
Mark Lazar,
CEO;
Tomer Kagan,
Co-founder, Chief Strategy Officer;
Liron Shapira,
Co-founder, Chief Science Officer
ProductsNatural language search engine technology for finding mobile applications

History

Quixey was co-founded in 2009 by Chief Strategy Officer (and former CEO) Tomer Kagan and Chief Science Officer Liron Shapira.[5] The company spent a year and a half building the product.[6]

On December 4, 2012, Quixey partnered with the federated search engine, Ask.com.[7] A month later, the company claimed that it was powering nearly 100 million queries per month.[8] On June 27, 2013, the company announced sponsored results, its first attempt at monetization.[9]

In February 2016, several executives reportedly left Quixey as the company missed revenue targets.[3] The company shut down in February 2017.

Funding

At the same time as its private launch, Quixey announced its $400,000 seed round funding, led by Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors.[10] In August 2011, the company closed its Series A round of funding, led by U.S. Venture Partners and WI Harper Group, with participation from Webb Investment Network and Innovation Endeavors.[11] Between August 2011 and June 2012, when Quixey announced its Series B round of $20 million, the company grew from six employees to 30.[12]

Partners

Quixey’s partners included Ask.com, a federated search engine that in 2012 was reported to get 3% of all U.S.-based query volume.[13] The company began powering Ask.com’s app search on December 4, 2012.[14] Quixey powered app search for Sprint on two products: Sprint Digital Lounge and Sprint Zone.[15]

Quixey Challenge

Early on, Quixey built a coding challenge called Quixey Challenge to attract engineering talent. The contest asked participants to solve a bug in under one minute to win $100 and a Quixey t-shirt. In December 2011, the contest yielded 38 winners, five of which became serious candidates for three open positions.[16]

References
  1. Kim, Ryan (2011-04-08). "Quixey Looks to Make App Discovery More Natural — Tech News and Analysis". Gigaom.com. Retrieved 2013-03-05.
  2. "Quixey wants to help you find apps that matter, gets $20M". Venturebeat.com. 7 June 2012. Retrieved 2013-03-27.
  3. Bergen, Mark (February 29, 2016). "Quixey COO, CTO Depart as Mobile Startup Misses Revenue Targets". Re/code. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  4. Irfan, Jafrey (2018-02-05). "5 infamous startup failures in 2017: pick your lessons". CIO.com. IDG Communications. Retrieved 2018-11-05. It eventually had to let go of most of its employees finally shut down in February 2017.
  5. "Quixey: A Search Engine For The Apps Era". searchengineland.com. 2012-10-31. Retrieved 2013-03-27.
  6. Jennifer Van Grove (2011-04-13). "One Search Engine for a Million Apps [INVITES]". Mashable.com. Retrieved 2013-03-05.
  7. "Ask.com adds mobile apps to its search results". bigstory.ap.org. Archived from the original on 6 May 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  8. "Former Zynga 'Fixer' Guru Gowrappan Heads To App Search Startup Quixey As EVP Of Products". TechCrunch. 2013-01-18. Retrieved 2013-03-05.
  9. "Quixey Adds Sponsored Results To Its App Search Engine, Its First Step To Revenue Generation". Techcrunch.com. 2013-06-27. Retrieved 2013-07-03.
  10. Kincaid, Jason. "Quixey Raises $400K From Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors For App Search". Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  11. "Quixey grabs $3.8M for app search". 2011-08-29. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  12. "Fast-Growing App Search Engine Quixey Raises $20 Million Series B". TechCrunch. 2012-06-07. Retrieved 2013-03-05.
  13. "Web search + app search, together at last: Ask.com integrates Quixey app search results". Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  14. Perez, Sarah. "App Search Company Quixey To Power App Search Results On Ask.com". Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  15. "Quixey Partners With Sprint To Power App Search On Sprint's Android Smartphones & Online Portal". Techcrunch.com. 2012-10-04. Retrieved 2013-03-27.
  16. "How do you hire great engineers? Give them a challenge — Tech News and Analysis". Gigaom.com. 2012-01-19. Retrieved 2013-03-05.
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