05

10

Powerset?s Dilemma: Go For It, Or Sell

San Francisco based search startup Powerset will be launching shortly. For now, Powerset will query only Wikipedia and Freebase. But as I said when the product was demo’d to me a few weeks ago, it is compelling nonetheless: “When I tested the service I had something very similar to the ?Aha!? feeling that ran through me the first time I ever used Google. In short, it is an evolutionary, and possibly revolutionary, step forward in search.”
But now the company may have to make a hard decision: sell now to one of the big Internet players looking for a point of differentiation in search, or take the risk of going it alone and possibly getting a huge, multi-billion dollar payoff down the road.
According to our sources, Powerset is exploring both options. They hired Dave Wehner, a Managing Director at investment bank Allen & Co. (he’s the guy who sold Bebo for […]

Source

Comments

Write a comment