Kosmix
Encyclopedia
Kosmix was an American
privately held company
in Mountain View, California
. Their website earned revenue from advertising related to its categorization engine. The engine organizes the Internet into topic pages allowing users to explore the Web by topic, "presenting a dashboard of relevant videos, photos, news, commentary, opinion, communities and links to related topics". Venky Harinarayan
and Anand Rajaraman
founded Kosmix in 2005. In April 2011 Walmart acquired Kosmix and formed @WalmartLabs, a research division, out of it.
which was acquired by Amazon.com
in 1998. They later created Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk
and started an early-stage VC
fund, Cambrian Ventures, that backed several companies later acquired by Google
.
Kosmix initially introduced health site RightHealth, a vertical search engine, to demonstrate their approach to Web navigation. Kosmix expanded its focus from vertical to a horizontal search engine in June 2008, covering all subjects. For a key word or topic that a user enters, "Kosmix gathers content from across the Web to build a sort of multimedia encyclopedia entry on the fly. The company has built a taxonomy of nearly five million categories on a wide range of topics. The taxonomy includes millions of connections mapping the relationship among those categories."
Kosmix launched a personal news site called MeeHive in March, 2008 which is similar to Google News
or MyYahoo!, but allows users to customize their interests to a greater degree. Meehive was shut down in October 2010. Kosmix launched tweetbeat in June 2010 as it entered the social media arena.
Kosmix was acquired by Walmart in April/May 2011 as it opened @walmartlabs for a rumored amount of 300M US$.
in November 2005. Their second round of 18 million from Accel Partners
and Lightspeed Venture Partners was announced in 2006 followed by a third round of 10 million on behalf of Accel Partners, DAG Ventures
and Lightspeed Venture Partners. A fourth round of funding was secured in December 2008 in the amount of 20 million from Time Warner Investments, Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, DAG Partners and former Motorola
CEO Ed Zander. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos
is also an investor, through Bezos Expeditions.
.
Truveo
announced in September 2007 that the company's video search engine is being used by Kosmix to present topic-relevant videos on its health site RightHealth, giving users a starting point to explore health topics.
In April 2011, Kosmix announced a partnership with AskTheDoctor.com, in which AskTheDoctor.com will provide Q & A format medical content for Kosmix's website RightHealth.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
privately held company
Privately held company
A privately held company or close corporation is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members which does not offer or trade its company stock to the general public on the stock market exchanges, but rather the...
in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
. Their website earned revenue from advertising related to its categorization engine. The engine organizes the Internet into topic pages allowing users to explore the Web by topic, "presenting a dashboard of relevant videos, photos, news, commentary, opinion, communities and links to related topics". Venky Harinarayan
Venky Harinarayan
Venky Harinarayan is a web and technology entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Cambrian Ventures and Kosmix. Harinarayan also co-founded Junglee Corp...
and Anand Rajaraman
Anand Rajaraman
Anand Rajaraman is a Web and technology entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Cambrian Ventures and Kosmix. Rajaraman also co-founded former Junglee Corp. and played a significant role at Amazon.com in the late 1990s.-Personal life and education:...
founded Kosmix in 2005. In April 2011 Walmart acquired Kosmix and formed @WalmartLabs, a research division, out of it.
History
Harinarayan and Rajaraman were co-founders of Junglee, the first shopping search engineSearch engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
which was acquired by Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
in 1998. They later created Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk
Amazon Mechanical Turk
The Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables computer programmers to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are unable to do yet. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services...
and started an early-stage VC
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
fund, Cambrian Ventures, that backed several companies later acquired by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
.
Kosmix initially introduced health site RightHealth, a vertical search engine, to demonstrate their approach to Web navigation. Kosmix expanded its focus from vertical to a horizontal search engine in June 2008, covering all subjects. For a key word or topic that a user enters, "Kosmix gathers content from across the Web to build a sort of multimedia encyclopedia entry on the fly. The company has built a taxonomy of nearly five million categories on a wide range of topics. The taxonomy includes millions of connections mapping the relationship among those categories."
Kosmix launched a personal news site called MeeHive in March, 2008 which is similar to Google News
Google News
Google News is a free news aggregator provided by Google Inc, selecting recent items from thousands of publications by an automatic aggregation algorithm....
or MyYahoo!, but allows users to customize their interests to a greater degree. Meehive was shut down in October 2010. Kosmix launched tweetbeat in June 2010 as it entered the social media arena.
Kosmix was acquired by Walmart in April/May 2011 as it opened @walmartlabs for a rumored amount of 300M US$.
Financing
The first funding for Kosmix of 7 million was secured from Lightspeed Venture PartnersLightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm focusing on early stage investments in IT companies.The firm is based in Menlo Park, California and has raised approximately $2 billion of investor capital since inception across eight venture funds....
in November 2005. Their second round of 18 million from Accel Partners
Accel Partners
Accel Partners is a global venture and growth equity firm funding companies from inception through the growth stage.The firm is based in Palo Alto, California with major offices in Bangalore, Beijing, London, and Shanghai....
and Lightspeed Venture Partners was announced in 2006 followed by a third round of 10 million on behalf of Accel Partners, DAG Ventures
DAG Ventures
DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. It is known as a "coattail" fund for co-investing in later-stage private financing rounds alongside more prominent top-tier venture funds such as Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Accel Venture...
and Lightspeed Venture Partners. A fourth round of funding was secured in December 2008 in the amount of 20 million from Time Warner Investments, Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, DAG Partners and former Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
CEO Ed Zander. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos is the founder, president, chief executive officer , and chairman of the board of Amazon.com.-Early life and background:...
is also an investor, through Bezos Expeditions.
Growth
As of March 2008, Kosmix' market-share had grown 730% year-over-year. RightHealth is now the #2 health site on the Web, according to HitwiseHitwise
Experian Hitwise is a global online competitive intelligence service which collects data directly from ISP networks to aid website managers in analysing trends in visitor behavior and to measure website market share. The Hitwise product is a commercial platform whereby customers pay Hitwise a...
.
Partnerships
In June 2007, Kosmix announced a partnership with Revolution Health, in which Revolution Health will utilize Kosmix to enhance content searches on RevolutionHealth.com.Truveo
Truveo
Truveo is a search engine for Web video, based in San Francisco and operated by AOL. Truveo was founded in 2004 by Timothy Tuttle and Adam Beguelin. Truveo launched its first commercial video search service in September 2005. Truveo was acquired by AOL in January 2006...
announced in September 2007 that the company's video search engine is being used by Kosmix to present topic-relevant videos on its health site RightHealth, giving users a starting point to explore health topics.
In April 2011, Kosmix announced a partnership with AskTheDoctor.com, in which AskTheDoctor.com will provide Q & A format medical content for Kosmix's website RightHealth.