Powerset search

Powerset, a stealth search engine in Silicon Valley, announced Monday that it's secured $12.5 million in funding for a pre-money valuation north of $30 million. That means, Powerset co-founders Barney Pell, Lorenzo Thione, and Steve Newcomb gave away about 25% of their company, and not a third, like some writers have suggested. (Powerset closed the $10.5 million in the past month and raised a $2 mln bridge round in the spring.)

Powerset is a fantastic search engine that is sure to raise eyebrows at the old guard search engines, such as Google (goog), InterActiveCorp's (IACI) Ask.com, Microsoft's (msft) Live and Yahoo (yhoo). After having an in-depth demonstration of the search engine last week, I’m convinced that Powerset has a great shot at improving the overall search experience. By doing the Pepsi challenge between Powerset and other search engines, I have to say, searching was a far richer and liberating experience on Powerset. Essentially, Powerset provides semantic search. Current search engines find results based on occurrence and proximity of words in a document. Powerset is building an index that takes into account the meaning and relationship of words. Be sure to read my Net Sense commentary on MarketWatch that goes out Tuesday for my review.

Also visit my MarketWatch blogs.

Powerset, a stealth search engine in Silicon Valley, announced Monday that it's secured $12.5 million in funding for a pre-money valuation north of $30 million. That means, Powerset co-founders Barney Pell, Lorenzo Thione, and Steve Newcomb gave away about 25% of their company, and not a third, like some writers have suggested. (Powerset closed the $10.5 million in the past month and raised a $2 mln bridge round in the spring.)

Powerset is a fantastic search engine that is sure to raise eyebrows at the old guard search engines, such as Google (goog), InterActiveCorp's (IACI) Ask.com, Microsoft's (msft) Live and Yahoo (yhoo). After having an in-depth demonstration of the search engine last week, I’m convinced that Powerset has a great shot at improving the overall search experience. By doing the Pepsi challenge between Powerset and other search engines, I have to say, searching was a far richer and liberating experience on Powerset. Essentially, Powerset provides semantic search. Current search engines find results based on occurrence and proximity of words in a document. Powerset is building an index that takes into account the meaning and relationship of words. Be sure to read my Net Sense commentary on MarketWatch that goes out Tuesday for my review.

Also visit my MarketWatch blogs.

Comments

[K.D.]

Interested in your thoughts on a company doing visual search and direct to content links.

Check out www.qode.com
www.neom.com

They have partnered with a comapny called Mobot. They were mentioned in Forbes mag back in 2004 or 2005 that they would be one of the top 25 up and coming technologies.

One click access while shopping with your mobile device. Not only that but so much more. What brand manufacturer does not want to get to the consumer faster.

Take a pick of a 1D, 2D, QR code, smart code, RFID, logo, trademark, keyword and get instant information sent back to yor mobile device. Coupons, discounts, information, nearest location. When a I want goes on promotion, I get a notification sent to my mobile deviceon where, when, what cost, and even what is the quickest route to the store.

Thoughts?
K.D.

[Enrique Torrejon]

Hi,

Regarding the hype of PowerSet and the NLP technology they are developing, it is not that new!

At Bitext, we have been developing natural language search engines for more than 4 years now. These engines allow users to query in natural language to any computer application, including the web.

If you would like to see how it works, you can visit our demo of NaturalFinder integrated with MSN Search for English at http://demos.bitext.com/MSNen/frames.htm

Our technology can be easily integrated with any search engine like Google Search Appliance, Autonomy, dtSearch, Lucene, etc.

For more info, do not hesitate to contact us!

Good day to all!