A new search engine called Neeva just gained $40 million Series B funding. Founded by ex Google employees with headquarters down the road from the tech giant. You may have read about the social media platform built for good recently; well, how do you feel about a search engine created for privacy?
Neeva hopes to take market share from Google
Sure, you have the likes of DuckDuckGo that offers additional privacy protections, and Mozilla Firefox, which has built-in cookie jars to prevent third parties from sharing your information, but this particular search engine is offering something that no other platform does. Neeva is dedicated and extremely strict about operating its platform without ads.
“Search is the gateway to the world’s information, and with Neeva, we want to help you experience the Internet in a new way—free of distractions, prying eyes and frustration.”
The brand wants its users to see search results that aren’t dictated by advertisers. Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Neeva, worked at Google for 15 years, where he helped to build, scale and run the tech giant’s ad division.
Neeva, a new subscription search engine, doesn’t sell ads or track user behavior.
https://t.co/LPkGsrzEEt— Fast Company (@FastCompany) March 19, 2021
New search engine will prioritize privacy for customers
Vivek Raghunathan was Google’s VP of Monetization at YouTube and worked at Google just shy of twelve years. Clearly this duo has a lot of experience and are putting it to use in providing a new search engine.
And they aren’t the only ex-Googlers on the team. Udi Manber has joined the team. His career includes working at Yahoo, Amazon, and Google.
Margo Georgiadis held the position of Google’s VP of Global Sales Operations and was the tech giant’s President of the Americas.
Darin Fisher was previously VP of Engineering at Google. Neeva is based in Mountain View, three miles from Google’s headquarters. Traditionally, search engines are powered by advertising; that’s how these platforms remain free.
So, if Neeva has ditched the ads, how is the search engine made available? The platform will operate on a subscription basis, costing users between $5-10 per month. Let’s see if consumers are willing to pay for more privacy. I’m sure many will.