Swiftype is a Y Combinator–incubated search startup that provides customizable site and app search and is used by hundreds of thousands of websites and apps. Its core product emphasizes semantic understanding of queries and includes live analytics, improving results for e-commerce (e.g., distinguishing “blue dress” from “dress shoes”) and for knowledge bases handling long, complex questions. The company still supports publishers but has expanded into knowledge bases and e-commerce to pursue larger customers. Customers named in coverage include Qualcomm, Dr. Pepper, Twitch, and CloudFlare. Co‑founders Matt Riley and Quin Hoxie remain involved and serve on the company’s board. Financially, Swiftype has raised more than $20 million to date, most recently a $13M Series B. Swiftype builds a smarter, API-driven search engine for web and mobile sites with a dashboard that lets site owners customize rankings, edit titles, and manage search results. Installation is done via a supplied JavaScript snippet and the product organizes pages in real time based on importance rankings. The company was founded in 2012 by Matt Riley and Quin Hoxie out of their work on Scribd’s in-house search. Swiftype’s API and developer tools power more than 200 million queries per month and the service is used by about 100,000 sites, including Best Buy, Twitch, Twilio, and Asana; pricing ranges from $20 to $300 with custom enterprise packages. The startup is debuting the Swiftype Platform to enable OEM partners to resell the service and has a reseller partnership with CloudFlare. Competitors include Google, Attivio, and Endeca, but Swiftype emphasizes quick API-based implementation and curator tools. The company says the new funding will be used to hire additional engineering staff and build out infrastructure to scale. Swiftype builds real-time site search engines that index pages and rank results, delivered via an API and installed by pasting a JavaScript snippet into a website. The product includes a dashboard that lets customers customize search results by editing titles or deleting entries and provides analytics. The team emphasizes scalability through its API-based architecture versus on-premise enterprise competitors, and aims to turn the search box into a marketing tool. Founders Matt Riley and Quin Hoxie say the company will develop mobile-search improvements and branding, plus a tool to surface trending searches. Swiftype has grown to 70,000 users generating more than 130 million queries per month. Pricing ranges from $20 to $300 with custom enterprise packages available. The company competes with enterprise search vendors such as Attivio and Endeca.

Total raised

$22M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Mar 2015