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Kagi raises $670k

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Re: Kagi raises $670k

#121

Post by davedx »

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…

Yeah, there's a lot of truth in this, and it matches my experience, with the caveat that the 3-4 guys need to stay very clear eyed and pragmatic with their technology choices. Kind of covered by the "talented" part but I've seen so many otherwise talented people fall into holes because of this, and I'd guess it applies doubly for building a search engine.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#122

Post by senko »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #75

Kagi has successfully raised $670K in a SAFE note investment round, marking our first external fundraise to date. This was made possible with the participation of 42 accredited investors, most of whom are actual Kagi users. That is a dense paragraph. 1) What is a "SAFE note"? Google tells me: A "Simple Agreement for Future Equity" note is a way that startups can raise capital. The SAFE note is a legally binding agree…

For context, you're reading this on Hacker News, a forum hosted by YC.

What Google didn't tell you is that SAFEs were invented by YC ten years ago in order to provide better angel/seed investing framework than the then-current bespoke convertible notes.

You can read all about it here: https://www.ycombinator.com/documents/

"Accredited investor" is basically someone who is supposed to be sophisticated enough that they won't first give you (a startup) some money, then later on say they didn't know that your startup was risky and sue you. Accepting investments only from accredited investors is a way to shield yourself from that scenario.

Both terms are used fairly often on HN (and really throughout the startup communities anywhere).

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#124

Post by dgb23 »

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…

Recently saw a talk from one of the ID software people. Really supports and illustrates your claim.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#125

Post by TeMPOraL »

imiric wrote: post #80
sph wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They reach the top of HN front page. Because I've never heard of Neeva before, but I'm a Kagi paying user.

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…

You're forgetting that the "niche technical audience" has something marketers and influencers and other kinds of pushers don't: competence and credibility. And (not relevant here, but to plenty other products) control or influence over procurement process in SMBs, corporations, universities and government facilities.

Nearly all of us in the "niche technical audience" are the personal IT support departments of some subset of our family, friends, and their friends. They come to us asking for advice, or to set their computers/phones up, or to fix them after they "caught viruses". However begrudgingly we do that, it puts us in a position of power - they listen to and trust in what we say, and accept uncritically what we do to their machines. And, our interests are mostly aligned with theirs - even if we don't care about particular friend-of-a-friend's happiness, we'll still do them good so they don't have to come back with more issues any time soon.

This is how Google Chrome spread. This is how Firefox still survives. This is how several brands of anti-malware software spread - a mistake that's now difficult to undo. This is how AdBlock Plus became a thing, and how uBlock Origin is now replacing it. All these trends and more, I participated in first-hand. People still remember and follow advice I gave them over a decade ago (which isn't always good - see the anti-malware stuff).

And so is the case with Kagi, to a degree. I'm paid user for 1.5 years now, happy with the service. I recommend it in relevant discussions, I mention it to people who spot it - but since it's a paid product, it is a tough sell with general population. Still, I try to spread the word, like I do with any other good and non-user-abusive tool.

That said, this news makes me somewhat reluctant to recommend Kagi. I'll keep using it because it provides me immediate value for reasonable price, but taking investment often is a Faustian bargain. In this case it's not as clear as with regular VC backing, so I guess we'll see where this goes.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#126

Post by alexruf »

Alifatisk wrote: post #94
lorenz_li wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the xSearch[1] app you can. [1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xsearch-for-safari/id157990206...

I use FF on my apple devices, it's easy to set the default search engine there. I can customize my preferred search engine on the settings app, but Kaigi is not there. The only options for me is: - Google - Yahoo - Bing - Duckduckgo (my current option) - Ecosia

https://help.kagi.com/kagi/getting-started/setting-default.h...

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#128

Post by rightbyte »

parker_mountain wrote: post #96
p-e-w wrote: post #90

That's great news. If there ever was an opportunity for newcomers to enter the search engine market, it is now. 15 years ago, the idea of competing with Google would have been laughable. Not only did they have all the money, their search engine was so incredibly good that it's hard to imagine what a new market entrant could have brought to the table. Today, Google's results are so hilariously bad that I have no doubt…

> I have no doubt the majority of HN users could easily come up with ranking algorithms that would outperform Google's by a large margin Google is facing incredible adversaries whose only goal is to subvert their search. These adversaries are extremely skilled, motivated, and effective. You're probably right that many people can do better than Google, until you get enough traction that these adversaries pay attention…

> Google is facing incredible adversaries

Are they? Google could manually remove the worst SEO sites from the index and like reduce the spam you get for dev queries with like 95%.

It takes time to build up rank and like 10s to remove the site.

There is an extension that does this client side for Firefox. Try it. (I don't remember the name. I only have it on desktop).

The only explaintions are that Google is too dysfunctional to do anything or they are doing it on purpose to increase revenue. Otherwise there is no way the SEO would suddenly become this bad.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#129

Post by detourdog »

function_seven wrote: post #41

I had to read the headline twice. At first I read it as $670 million, and I was very sad. That’s “VCs gonna enshittify it in 3 years” money. But then I saw the “K” and grinned. This is proper bootstrap money, and makes me hopeful that Kagi will stay close to its original mission. Congrats. I am really pulling for you, Vlad.

Kagi is such a funny company. I remember as an early internet payment provider. I subscribe to kagi search.
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