Blekko is on a quest to build a search engine free of spam, content farms and malware. Its goal is to eke out a small percentage of the U.S. search market, currently dominated by Google. The startup has always contended that owning just 1% of all searches could turn it into a billion-dollar business.
Now, Blekko has the backing and support of Yandex -- Russia's most popular search engine -- to help it get there. "There could be a future for us here,” Yandex's CTO Arkady Borkovsky told the Associated Press on the company's first U.S. search investment. “This is an interesting experiment for us and we are quite excited about it.”
"Having access to one of the world’s top pools of search talent and the fantastic products they have built will help us grow Blekko in the U.S.," Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta says.
Yandex led the $30 million funding round with a $15 million investment. Arkady Volozh, founder and CEO of Yandex, is joining Blekko's board or directors. New investor MLC Private Equity, and repeat investors U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital and PivotNorth Capital also participated in the round.