SRCH2 launches ‘Google-like’ tech to fix enterprise search

When we consider the word “search,” most of us will conjure up a mental image of a Google search box.

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But Google isn’t the be-all and end-all for search. The newly launched startup SRCH2 doesn’t focus on standard web search, a space inhabited by Google and Bing. It’s offering a new take on “enterprise search.”

“We are trying to make enterprise search more Google-like,” said SRCH2 CEO Dev Bhatia [right] in a phone interview. “And make Google search available across all handsets and devices,” he explained.

Enterprise search specifically refers to the practice of making information, available from within multiple corporate data sources, searchable to an audience. Consider the typical search bar on Home Depot’s or Macy’s websites.

A group of ex-Googlers founded SRCH2. They have raised seed funding from a roster of high-profile investors, including Data Collective Zachary Bogue and Matt Ocko, Redpoint’s Brad Jones, Horizen Ventures, and TenOneTen Ventures, a new Southern California venture firm created by Gil Elbaz and David Waxman, the founders of Applied Semantics.

The problem is that enterprise search results are not nearly as relevant or instantaneous as a Google web search. This is particularly true when you’re performing a search on a mobile device. The problem has perpetuated, says Bhatia, because most search technology is an extension of Apache Lucene, an open-source project that was not developed to meet the needs of today’s consumers.

Bhatia considers search companies ElasticSearch and LucidWorks as the primary competition. But he clarifies that these search products are built on top of Lucene. SRCH2 is developed from the ground up.

Also potentially challenging for the startup’s growth is that some companies will task their developers to build an in-house solution for search. Bhatia said this is labor intensive, time-consuming, and in most cases “30 times slower” than SRCH2.

Customers can pay for an annual license (usually in the five-figure range) or a hosted platform model, which is how SRCH2 plans to make money. Bhatia said the technology is currently used by a handful of large beta testers — primarily in the e-commerce space — but the company can’t disclose them yet.

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Top image via SRCH2