Algolia Raises $110 Series C To Improve Search Functions

Search engine startup Algolia raised $110 million in its Series C round, bringing its total funding to more than $184 million.

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The latest round of funding was led by Accel, which led the company’s Series A and Series B rounds. Salesforce Ventures, a new investor in the company, also participated in the funding round.

The company last raised $53 million in a Series B round led by Accel in 2017. Accel partner Nate Niparko has also joined Algolia’s board of directors.

“Algolia is accelerating innovation in personalized and intelligent search, enabling companies to deliver a great user experience that drives improved business results,” Niparko said in a statement. “We are excited to double down on Algolia and support their mission to lead the search and discovery market.”

Algolia’s API powers the search functions for companies’ websites so that customers can find the most relevant results. Algolia has more than 8,000 customers, including Stripe, Sephora, Lacoste, and Slack. 

“The product is fully focused on user-facing interactions, so when we help a business it’s really to better engage their own users,” Dessaigne said.

With the new funding, Algolia plans on expanding its presence in the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific and investing in research and development. The company is investing in better understanding the intents of users when they make an inquiry, CEO Nicolas Dessaigne said in an interview. 

The company is working on making voice searches, which it already offers, more conversational, though Dessaigne said it’s hard to say when that function will be mainstream.

Algolia, which currently has about 350 employees, plans on hiring 100 more people over the next 12 to 18 months. The company, which is headquartered in San Francisco, has offices in Paris, London, Tokyo, New York, and Atlanta.

Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias