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Marc Andreessen backs stealth search startup, Blekko
Search startup Blekko has received USD3m in VC funding from Netscape and Ning founder Marc Andreessen, SoftTech VC and Western Technology Investment. Blekko is valued at USD23m following the round, says TechCrunch. The California-based startup was established last summer by Rich Skrenta, the founder of online news site Topix, who is also known for creating the first PC virus. Baseline Ventures and former Google employees David DesJardins and Jeremy Wenokur, who together invested USD2m in Blekko last year, also joined the round.
Deal Details
- Status completed
- Amount US$3m
- Investors
- Target Blekko
An increasing number of aspiring Google rivals have received funding in recent months. Powerset recently launched its semantic search engine on Wikipedia and has raised USD12.5m from Foundation Capital and The Founders Fund. Cuill, a secretive startup by former Google and IBM employees, has received a total of USD33m from investors including Madrone Capital, Tugboat Ventures and Greylock Partners. Others include the French and German projects Quaero and Theseus and US startup Mahalo, which mixes human editing with search and is backed by Sequoia Capital, News Corp and CBS.
