Former type Private CEO Mark Lazar (Apr 2016–) Founded 2009 | Website www.quixey.com Headquarters Mountain View | |
 | ||
Defunct February 2017 (2017-02) Key people Mark Lazar,
CEO;
Tomer Kagan,
Co-founder, Chief Strategy Officer;
Liron Shapira,
Co-founder, Chief Science Officer Products Natural language search engine technology for finding mobile applications | ||
Tomer kagan ceo and co founder quixey the 2012 appbackr napa app retreat
Quixey was a company located in Mountain View, California that called itself "The Search Engine For Apps." Users could search for an app on Quixey by describing in natural language what they want to do. The company invented a new type of search, "Functional Search," that gathered app information from review sites, blogs, social media sites, and additional sources. The technology allowed users to search across multiple platforms, eliminating the need for multiple searches using different mobile devices. In 2015, Quixey raised a $60 million investment round at a valuation of approximately $600 million.
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Keynote tomer kagan ceo quixey
Functional Search
Quixey’s Functional Search technology used data from across the web (blogs, review sites, social media outlets, and more) to learn exactly what each app can do. With this data, the search engine enabled users to find apps without knowing the name or description.
History
Quixey was co-founded in 2009 by Chief Strategy Officer (and former CEO) Tomer Kagan and Chief Science Officer Liron Shapira. The company spent a year and a half building Functional Search before it launched in private beta on April 7, 2011.
On December 4, 2012, Quixey partnered with the federated search engine, Ask.com. A month later, the company stated that it was powering nearly 100 million queries per month and had grown to over 50 employees. On June 27, 2013, the company announced its Sponsored Apps program, an app advertising product and Quixey's first step toward monetization.
In February 2016, several executives reportedly left Quixey as the company missed revenue targets.
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. On May 23, 2011, the company officially launched at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, opening its website to the public. 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. The company continued to provide a web version of Functional Search, but emphasized offering its technology to carriers, app stores, and handset makers.
Between August 2011 and June 2012, when Quixey announced its Series B round of $20 million, the company grew from six employees to 30. The Series B round, announced June 7, 2012, included previous investors WI Harper Group, U.S. Venture Partners, and Innovation Endeavors, as well as new investors Atlantic Bridge, SK Planet, and Translink Capital.
Partners
Quixey’s partners included Ask.com, a federated search engine that gets 3% of all U.S.-based query volume. The company began powering Ask.com’s app search on December 4, 2012. Quixey powered app search for Sprint on two products: Sprint Digital Lounge and Sprint Zone, and announced a partnership with Microsoft in late April 2013.
Corporate affairs and company culture
Early on, Quixey built a coding challenge called Quixey Challenge to attract engineering talent. The contest asked participants to solve a bug in a famous line of code 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.
Quixey was headquartered in downtown Mountain View, California, in Silicon Valley. Its office had themed conference rooms constructed by local set designers, such as Ski Lodge, Picnic, Movie Theater, and Wild West.