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Kagi raises $670k

blog.kagi.com

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Re: Kagi raises $670k

#111

Post by freediver »

ftxbro wrote: post #103
raincole wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people here like Kagi and crave for a google alternative. I've seen Krita reach HN's front page. Not "Krita 5 just released". Literally just sigifing Krita's existance.

OK I had never heard Kagi before this and I didn't realize it was that kind of post so I was confused. If it's a Google alternative, wouldn't it be difficult because I imagine Google has so much lock in by now? Like I imagine they have special deals with like cloudflare or whatever so that Google's spiders are allowed but spiders from random companies that got less than a million dollars spiders aren't allowed? Is it…

> OK I had never heard Kagi before this and I didn't realize it was that kind of post so I was confused. If it's a Google alternative, wouldn't it be difficult because I imagine Google has so much lock in by now?

You are absoluetly right. This is what this paragraph from the announcement addresses.

“Looking ahead, we are cognizant that when building Kagi, we are running a marathon and not a sprint. Altering entrenched habits in the society, such as the reliance on personal data and even pieces of what makes us human as currency for essential online activities like search and browsing, is a gradual process that will take time.”

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#112

Post by piva00 »

ftxbro wrote: post #103
raincole wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people here like Kagi and crave for a google alternative. I've seen Krita reach HN's front page. Not "Krita 5 just released". Literally just sigifing Krita's existance.

OK I had never heard Kagi before this and I didn't realize it was that kind of post so I was confused. If it's a Google alternative, wouldn't it be difficult because I imagine Google has so much lock in by now? Like I imagine they have special deals with like cloudflare or whatever so that Google's spiders are allowed but spiders from random companies that got less than a million dollars spiders aren't allowed? Is it…

They aren't trying to replace Google, they are an alternative for privacy-minded individuals who use/rely on searching a lot and want a better experience than Google provides.

Google will have its lock in but there's a market share of people like me (and many others here on HN) which have been let down by the constant enshittification of Google's search and will pay for an alternative providing the experience we were used with Google some 10-15 years ago.

Kagi is being smart, they don't need to become a multi-billion company, it's a small team (last I've seen it was about 15 people), providing a good enough product to have paying customers. I've been using it since Nov/2022 and been pretty happy to pay the US$ 10/month for a better and more private search product.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#113

Post by resolutebat »

Animats wrote: post #6

"Kagi is building a novel ad-free, paid search engine and a powerful web browser as a part of our mission to humanize the web." With 670K? Cuil went through about $30 million to develop a standalone search engine. And that was fifteen years ago, when search was simpler. There may be a market for a search engine company that profitably runs a low-cost operation with very few ads and makes real efforts to keep out spam…

I'm happily paying $10/mo for Kagi, I find it genuinely better* than Google already. And yes, it's genuinely amazing that it's a pipsqueak startup that's pulling this off.

* For core search, that is, obviously there's vast slabs of services like maps, translate, etc etc where they're not even trying to compete.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#114

Post by ziftface »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #84
leokennis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for iOS/Mac but 99.999% sure for other browsers as well, they could write an extension that rewrites " https://www.google.com/search?q=some%20search " into their own search url right? Then keep Google as default search engine. Installing an extension sounds like a hurdle people paying for search are willing and able to jump over.

They do have a Safari extension on iOS, which directs searches to kagi.com

I love kagi but I hate this. It's not their fault, it's just a limitation of the os but it's such a hassle when you have to solve a Google captcha to get kagi results. I'm considering just removing that from my phone and switching back to Google there.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#115

Post by imiric »

int_19h wrote: post #88
imiric wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hardly a relevant criteria. HN consists of a niche audience of technical users already interested in startups and search technology. The real criteria is whether Kagi will be able to scale beyond a niche market, and establish a sustainable mainstream business. OP's question is valid, but it can't be answered by outsider speculation. Hopefully someone from Kagi is able to address it. This investment is a good s…

Why can't it be a sustainable niche business?

True, it could be. I'm just not sure it can survive as such when its main competitors are billion-dollar corporations.

But maybe there's room for smaller search engines with alternative business models to compete with each other. marginalia.nu is another promising startup.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#116

Post by networked »

This sounds like good news for Crystal, too. Thanks to more resources, a company powered by Crystal is more likely to hire developers, publish code, sponsor open source projects, and generally be a showcase for the language.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32687071:

> Crystal powers 90% of the Kagi search backend (reminder being Python). Highlights are great performance and concurency handling. Biggest downsides at this moment are compilation speed (does not take advantage of multi CPU cores) and debugging tools.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#117

Post by ignoramous »

tough wrote: post #107
weego wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$670k investment is not "bootstrap money". It's literally the opposite of bootstrapping. What is the value in this attempted narrative? Is it the entrepreneur equivalent of "I don't work with big data, only 500 billion row sets but..."

You can pay a couple years software engineers for a year at SF rates

Or pay 2 capable engs in India for 11 years. £670k is a lot in some parts of the world

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#118

Post by hcks »

tough wrote: post #107
weego wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$670k investment is not "bootstrap money". It's literally the opposite of bootstrapping. What is the value in this attempted narrative? Is it the entrepreneur equivalent of "I don't work with big data, only 500 billion row sets but..."

You can pay a couple years software engineers for a year at SF rates

If by « a couple » you literally mean 2 then sure

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#119

Post by jillesvangurp »

Animats wrote: post #6

"Kagi is building a novel ad-free, paid search engine and a powerful web browser as a part of our mission to humanize the web." With 670K? Cuil went through about $30 million to develop a standalone search engine. And that was fifteen years ago, when search was simpler. There may be a market for a search engine company that profitably runs a low-cost operation with very few ads and makes real efforts to keep out spam…

At their current pricing, about 10k paying users would get them 600K/year in revenue. Which is what they just raised. Enough for a small team and modest infrastructure. You don't need a lot to serve 600K users.

All they need to do is nail enough value add for those users. The wider goal of disrupting Google/Bing is a different game. But getting a small company to 10K paying users might be doable given enough of a value add.

Of course they are based in the Bay area, so this kind of money doesn't have a huge runway there.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#120

Post by antupis »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #85
Animats wrote: post #6

"Kagi is building a novel ad-free, paid search engine and a powerful web browser as a part of our mission to humanize the web." With 670K? Cuil went through about $30 million to develop a standalone search engine. And that was fifteen years ago, when search was simpler. There may be a market for a search engine company that profitably runs a low-cost operation with very few ads and makes real efforts to keep out spam…

I think a small operation is exactly the sort of outfit to do it. Makes you focus on what is important. The absolute worst way you can arrange a search engine project is as some sort of manhattan project with a humongous budget and an army of professors and experts. History is littered with bold and ambitious Google killers that went nowhere. You can throw almost any amount of money at an operation, and it will gobbl…

Also search is now kinda in the strategic inflection point where Google has to change so it will create opportunities for smaller players.
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