Gawker: valleywag, searchme

SearchMe lays off 20 percent

Paul Boutin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:40:00 EDT

"Visual search engine" company SearchMe had, according to CrunchBase, 52 employees and $43.6 million in funding, led by Sequoia Capital. Just two weeks ago, TechCrunch ranked the company No. 76 in "Startups Best Positioned To Weather A Downturn." But VentureBeat confirms the company has fired 20 percent of its staff. Using the ad-hoc Sequoia formula, "you need a year of cash and a revenue model," here's my guess: Too much spending. And it doesn't help that the first demo I clicked on the site's front door broke Firefox.

New Sequoia-backed search engine not that great, just wants 1 percent market share

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:40:00 EDT

A tipster talks about working across the hall from Mark Kvamme-backed SearchMe.

I talked to one of their engineers. He said, "We're just like Google." I asked if they were any better or going after verticals. "Nope. We figure that even 1 percent of Google's market is enough to make money on."

Sequoia clones unsuccessful search engine — maybe Google will buy it anyway

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:40:00 EDT

Sequoia partner Mark Kvamme just plunked down $31 million on a company he also chairs, called Searchme. It's an image-based search engine. Search is a crowded field but Searchme CEO Randy Adams thinks there's room for innovation. "Search," he told BoomTown, "is still largely a text and list experience." True, but Snap CEO Tom McGovern told me almost the exact same thing in May 2006. Didn't work out for him. Now Snap is a site for bloggers. Below, a video demonstration of Searchme's "innovation" and another video showing two-year-old Snap doing pretty much the same things.

Searchme may remind some of Apple's iTunes Cover Flow feature, but if it's more likely to succeed than Snap that's not why. Snap was search-ad innovator Bill Gross's brainchild. Good genes. But Searchme's Sequioa roots are better. Sequioa funded Google, which is known to return the favor from time to time.