Visual search site Like.com closes $32M round

October 22, 2008 | Anthony Ha | Comments | |

Visual search shopping site Like.com just announced that it has raised a $32 million third round of funding. We reported on the deal back in July, but the money hadn’t been wired over yet and we could only say the amount was in the “double digit millions.”

VentureBeat Editor Matt Marshall has been pretty impressed by Like.com’s business and technology, arguing the site demonstrates that image search can work. Looks like Menlo Ventures agrees — it led the round at a rumored valuation of more than $100 million. The round’s timing doesn’t hurt either. Coming just before the financial meltdown, the valuation discussion was probably more generous than it would be now, and the cash gives the San Mateo, Calif. company a nice buffer if its growth slows.

The company’s visual search creates a better online shopping experience by letting you search for things like “red snappy shoes,” which normal search engines might struggle with. Like.com can match colors, shapes and patterns.

The company previously raised $19.5 million. Competitors include CastTV, Blinkx, Videosurf, and others.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • I was expecting a site like Searchme.com, but it looks more like a shopping site than a search engine.
  • Whoops, I can see how that was a little confusing. I've rewritten the first paragraph so it's clearer what Like.com does.
  • I am just curious
    The site is fishy: after all this "million" $ poured in, the home page looks the same to me as back in July. I tried to run some search on drugs and watches, and frankly like.com is a directory - the one you see back in 90's.

    Yes, I read those "purchased traffic" posts back but my suspicion grows further more now.

    I am just wondering why there are so many buzzes about this site?
  • Well, I guess you've already read Matt's posts making the case for Like.com's success, so there's not much I can add. What is it about the site that strikes you as "fishy"? What exactly are you suspicious of?
  • Jackinthebox
    Here are their search results for "red snappy shoes":

    http://www.like.com/all-search--red_snappy_shoes

    Not too snappy.