Semantic search engine Evri cuts staff by 25 percent

March 20, 2009 | Camille Ricketts | Comments |

Evri, the search engine that lets you track keyword results across the web, confirmed today that it has cut its staff by 25 percent to better weather the economic downturn. Chief executive Neil Roseman says the Seattle-based company is doing well, having recently landed two major partnerships, but that it’s necessary to trim costs in case the market slumps further.

“We’re in a tough market, and we want to be prudent for our investors,” he says. “It makes sense to make sure you’re giving yourself the best possible chance to succeed.” Roseman declined to specify how many employees lost their jobs.

Roseman says the company is pleased with its traction and progress, drawing more than 20 million monthly users. Earlier this week, it announced that it has teamed up with the Times of London to provide a content recommendation service on the newspaper’s web site. For every Times article, an Evri widget appears in the sidebar, listing links to associated articles from across the web. The company announced a similar deal with the Washington Post just last month.

Evri — which competes with similar search services Ensembli, Daylife and Mahalo — also just launched a new “Collections” feature at DEMO earlier this month. Collections allows the search engine’s users to automatically track certain keywords as more and more relevant articles, images and videos are added. It displays all of this material, including items about related concepts, in the form of a feed.

Evri was founded in 2007 and has raised $8 million in one round of funding from Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital.

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About the Author, Camille Ricketts

Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

With GreenBeat 2009, VentureBeat's all-star conference on all things Smart Grid, coming up in November, Camille will be expanding coverage of this exciting space. Stay up to date by following @greenbeat2009 on Twitter or by becoming a fan of the event on Facebook here.

  • tct
    this really isnt accurate werent they hypertext then restarted?
  • giberl
    "Top 10 Lists: Top 5 Non-Google Search Engines"

    http://top10listblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/top-5...

    I think the list of search engines make lots of sense.
  • gebrl
    It's insane that these guys are cutting staff right when they are trying to grow and just got contracts. Doesn't Paul Allen have enough money to fund his own ventures?
  • Bill
    Paul Allen treats these start-ups as play things. Since Paul got hit really hard in the market he is putting the squeeze on many of his start-ups.

    As for their contracts, we don't know the details. Is there a set revenue amount or is this based on performance of some kind. Are these deals just "trials" for a set amount of time before the publishers are willing to pay. In a tough economy publishers are not looking to spend money unless they know it generates additional revenue.

    This company is particular ran pretty fat. They acquired another start-up right off the bat. They spent a lot of money on fancy chairs, desks, plasma TVs, 3 flat screen monitors per engineer, game consoles, etc. The CEO used to run around town bragging about how much of Paul's money he has to spend and all the toys they have in the office. They also have been on a hiring spree; adding a number of senior execs.

    Looks like Paul finally put a stop to it. Surprising to see a company continue to toss money around in such an irresponsible manner these days.