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Kagi raises $670k

blog.kagi.com

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Re: Kagi raises $670k

#291

Post by gcanyon »

A bit of a non sequitur, but every time kagi comes up I get a twinge: "kagi.com" had a long, robust life in the earlier days of the internet as an e-commerce facilitator. They handled the credit card transactions for hundreds or thousands of small businesses in the '90s and '00s, including mine, and I somewhat knew the founder, Kee Nethery.

The internet changed over time, of course, and Kagi changed with it. Then something bad happened (I don't remember what, and archive.org is being unhelpful finding the announcement) and Kagi shut down. Then I guess Kee sold the domain, and here we are.

And every time the new kagi.com comes up, I think of Kee.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#292

Post by marginalia_nu »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #288
ColinHayhurst wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google started becoming an answer engine from ~2015 with the introduction of "People Also Ask", and arguably earlier than that [0]. Mojeek.com is a (information retrieval) search engine, and we resist the temptation to also become an answer engine. So you might say we do not compete with Google. afte all we have a very different business model and proposition. As for the index; this underpins mojeek.com and our API;…

>Google started becoming an answer engine from ~2015 with the introduction of "People Also Ask", and arguably earlier than that [0]. Mojeek.com is a (information retrieval) search engine, and we resist the temptation to also become an answer engine. So you might say we do not compete with Google. I'm sure you know your users well after so many years in the search engine business, but having read your article I must s…

It's basically the safest position you could be in.

An LLM to digest results of a classic search index is greater than the sum of its parts. An LLMs that is not permitted to brush up on the relevant literature before answering a question generally doesn't produce very good answers, is prone to hallucinations etc. A pure LLM design isn't even a serious contender in the answer engine space.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#293

Post by 8ytecoder »

tiltowait wrote: post #278
joshstrange wrote: post #237

Can someone help me a little? I tried Kagi and when my 100 searches ran out I stopped using it. I really didn't like the feeling that I needed to meter my searches, it added a barrier to every search I did (should I use Kagi for this or should I just use Google?). It sounds stupid but literally every search I did I had a pang of worry that I was "wasting" a search. I also didn't experience a huge increase in search q…

I initially worried about surpassing my quota at first, but I've never come close to it (I'm on the grandfathered $10/1500 plan). For me, I notice better search results than Google (not night and day, but noticeable). The ability to block/promote/demote certain sites is fantastic, and I like the URL rules you can create. For instance, I've set Reddit links to open in old.reddit.com, and I've set Youtube links to redi…

It’s the personalisation element combined with slightly better results that makes it so much better. Plus, I don’t have to block any ads or tracking. Google without an adblocker has become harder and harder to navigate.

On the other end, I’m seeing Google results get really really bad. Mostly just missing results. When I search the same term on bing there are pages and pages of results. I’ve no idea what’s going on at Google. I don’t use it logged in and don’t know if that affects the results.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#294

Post by darknavi »

mkeedlinger wrote: post #277

I don't think I've seen this sentiment shared by anyone else, so I'll go ahead and share it: I need a way to pay anonymously. For me, this usually means via Monero. Searches are simply too personal and too habitually unrestrained for me to trust to anyone who can de-anonymize them. Honestly, in retrospect I'll acknowledge that my intense quest for privacy is more ideological than practical, and it wouldn't likely be…

Maybe they could pull a Mullvad and accept cash via mail.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#295

Post by furyofantares »

grantcarthew wrote: post #38
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've been using Kagi since I could first get onto the product. As soon as it came out of Beta, I subscribed. I had no idea how intrusive Google was. I love Google services. Google Cloud is far better than the others. That said, the search is just poison. I now spend time looking at results, not searching for results. I have to admit though, ChatGPT did make me consider dropping the subscription. Mr Chat has weakened…

> I have to admit though, ChatGPT did make me consider dropping the subscription. Mr Chat has weakened the value of Kagi to me.

I felt the same, but I do still need web search, and I do still want it to be as good as possible, so it's still worth it to me.

And actually, as I type this I'm less sure about how much ChatGPT has reduced the value of web search for me. I start with ChatGPT for almost everything that's not "news". But I still frequently do web searches branching out from what I learned via ChatGPT. It's fewer total searches than I've done before, but each one might be more valuable. And since I'm flowing from one tool to another, not having to wade through ads and bad ui and SEO spam also becomes even more valuable.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#296

Post by philwelch »

karaterobot wrote: post #251
joshstrange wrote: post #237

Can someone help me a little? I tried Kagi and when my 100 searches ran out I stopped using it. I really didn't like the feeling that I needed to meter my searches, it added a barrier to every search I did (should I use Kagi for this or should I just use Google?). It sounds stupid but literally every search I did I had a pang of worry that I was "wasting" a search. I also didn't experience a huge increase in search q…

I've been using it since the beta, and am still paying for it. I shared your concerns at first, but in practice I've never run into the limit. In fact, checking my history, I've never actually gotten close to the limit. I pay $10/mo for 1500 searches, and most months I do less than 500 searches. I don't think the search quality is anything special. I have never figured out how to use Lenses, and I don't even care to…

How are you paying for it? Can’t they trace your searches back to you via your payment method?

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#297

Post by fauigerzigerk »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #292
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google started becoming an answer engine from ~2015 with the introduction of "People Also Ask", and arguably earlier than that [0]. Mojeek.com is a (information retrieval) search engine, and we resist the temptation to also become an answer engine. So you might say we do not compete with Google. I'm sure you know your users well after so many years in the search engine business, but having read your article I must s…

It's basically the safest position you could be in. An LLM to digest results of a classic search index is greater than the sum of its parts. An LLMs that is not permitted to brush up on the relevant literature before answering a question generally doesn't produce very good answers, is prone to hallucinations etc. A pure LLM design isn't even a serious contender in the answer engine space.

That would mean it's safe if "you" are Google or Microsoft+OpenAI as no one else has both a search index and an LLM.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#298

Post by karaterobot »

philwelch wrote: post #296
karaterobot wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using it since the beta, and am still paying for it. I shared your concerns at first, but in practice I've never run into the limit. In fact, checking my history, I've never actually gotten close to the limit. I pay $10/mo for 1500 searches, and most months I do less than 500 searches. I don't think the search quality is anything special. I have never figured out how to use Lenses, and I don't even care to…

How are you paying for it? Can’t they trace your searches back to you via your payment method?

I'm sure they can, but until new information comes to light, I'm trusting that their business model makes it against their interests to do that.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#299

Post by yieldcrv »

weikju wrote: post #70
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.

and it seems like many actual users of Kagi (and Orion?) have contributed, so this isn't a (completely) a "big VC firm will enshitify this". This gives me hope. I wish I would qualify to invest in things like this...

You can lie. That’s what “self-certify” means.

If you have the money to participate and lie about having/earning more money then you qualify.

There is no constitutional way to prevent you from investing based on net worth, so the law places consequences on the companies offering investments.

And the only time this affects the company is if they were relying on a regulatory exemption that also allows unaccredited investors, in which case you should have just participated as an unaccredited investor and they were supposed to verify.

Otherwise, the law says “self-certify”, which is the state sanctioned term for lying.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#300

Post by jerrygenser »

somewhat_drunk wrote: post #109
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…

SAFEs are common in equity crowdfunding. Raises on Republic are often SAFEs. I'm not a fan.

They are also standard in early stage institutional equity funding.
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