Written By Drupad Sil | August 6, 2007 | Share This |

As announced by paidContent.org, New Jersey based online search and e-commerce firm Accoona has filed for an IPO of its common stock. The maximum offering price would be in the realm of $80.5 million.

Launched in 2004 as a potential Google slayer, Accoona quickly generated more buzz through having former President Clinton give a speech at the opening presentation and subsequently spamming the web with promotions and advertisements. The company’s main draw was an artificial intelligence-powered search engine that supposedly learned as it was utilized more and more. In 2005 Accoona’s Toolbar, driven by a Fritz 9 computer chess program, drew against the 33rd World Chess Champion, showing its computing power and versatility. Another feature the search engine allows is for the user to emphasize one keyword above others in a query, sorting the results according to the emphasized keyword. Unfortunately, Accoona’s search engine never really caught on enough to compete with Google.

Currently, most of Accoona’s revenue comes from its e-commerce business in North America, where it operates 6 online retail sites in the consumer electronics and home appliances sector. The firm’s other two main lines of business are online-lead generation and its search engine. Most interestingly, Accoona has a 20-year deal with the China Daily Information Company (CDIC), which is a subsidiary of the China Daily, China’s largest English newspaper. Accoona utilizes its connection with the CDIC to obtain detailed information on 32 million companies globally, including 5 million in China. Originally billed as a powerful tool for business users, the feature hasn’t yet taken off in the finance world.

According to the Associated Press, Accoona has several plans for its IPO:

“The Jersey City, N.J.-based company said it expects to use proceeds from the offering for research and development, business expansion and general corporate purposes. Accoona may also use a portion of the proceeds to acquire or invest in complementary companies and technologies.”

Whether this IPO is a last gasp to make some money for the company’s owners or if it translates into more business for the search engine remains to be seen. However, there are many in the industry who view this as one of the first in a string of IPOs to come as more online search engine and marketing firms look to take the next step in their financial evolution.

Topics: Investment, M&A, Search: News, Technology |