Lucidworks

Last updated

Lucidworks Inc.
Company type Private
Industry Enterprise search
Internet search
Ecommerce
Customer Service
Information technology
Information access
Open source software
Founded2007
Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States
Area served
 Americas
EMEA
APAC
Key people
  • Will Hayes
  • (CEO)
  • Reade Frank
  • (COO)
  • Ellen Petry Leanse
  • (Chief People Officer)
  • Raj Kandasamy
  • (SVP of Engineering)
Products Search Engines
Support, Consulting and Training around Apache Lucene and Apache Solr
Lucidworks Fusion Search Platform
Connected Experience Cloud (CXC)
Number of employees
200+
Website www.lucidworks.com
Lucidworks Fusion
Stable release
4.1 / July 24, 2018;5 years ago (2018-07-24)
Written in Java
Type Search and index
Website www.lucidworks.com/fusion

Lucidworks is a San Francisco, California-based software company that specializes in commerce, customer service, and workplace applications.

Contents

Lucidworks was founded in 2007 under the name Lucid Imagination and launched in 2009. The company was later renamed Lucidworks in 2012. [1]

The Lucidworks founding technical team consisted of Marc Krellenstein, Grant Ingersoll, Erik Hatcher, and Yonik Seeley, [1] in addition to advisor Doug Cutting.[ citation needed ]

Business model

Lucidworks operates primarily with a subscription-based business model with their Lucidworks Fusion platform for designing, building, and deploying big data applications. Lucidworks also offers subscriptions for the support, training, and integration services that help customers use open source search software.

On September 18, 2014, Lucidworks released Lucidworks Fusion, a platform for building search and discovery applications that includes popular search technology Apache Solr and computation framework Apache Spark in its core. [2] [3]

On May 10, 2017, Lucidworks announced its acquisition of Twigkit, a software company specializing in user experiences for search and big data applications which was later integrated into the Fusion platform as Fusion App Studio. [4]

In September 2017, Reddit teamed with Lucidworks to build their new search application. [5] When talking about their decision Nick Caldwell the VP of engineering at Reddit stated "it had the right combination of technology and the ability to augment his engineering team, while helping search to continually evolve on Reddit." [6]

On March 6, 2018, Lucidworks released Lucidworks Site Search, an embeddable, easy-to-configure, out-of-the-box site search solution that runs in the cloud, or on premise. [7]

Losses

In September 2014, Lucidworks had "at least two rounds of layoff in the past three months" [8] stated by former employees, due to failures in multiple partnerships.

According to a VentureBeat article, Chief Executive Paul Doscher was, "replaced with former Splunk business-development director Will Hayes, who had no C-level experience" [9]

Multiple sources and former employees stated that the company had not increased annual sales, and Will Hayes allegedly sought to, "move LucidWorks up from its home in Redwood City, California, to San Francisco’s Union Square neighborhood." [10] Which was according to the article was, "Not too far away from his home, even as the company deals with two lawsuits."

Funding

The company received Series A funding from Basis Technology, Granite Ventures, and Walden International in Sept 2008; In-Q-Tel is a strategic investor. In August 2014, Lucidworks closed an $8 million Series C round with Shasta Ventures, Basis Technology, Granite Ventures and Walden International participating. [11] In November 2015, Lucidworks closed a $21 million Series D round with Allegis Capital, and existing investors Shasta Ventures and Granite Ventures participating. [12] In May 2018, the firm announced a $50 million Series E led by Top Tier Capital Partners, with participation from Silver Lake's growth capital fund, Silver Lake Waterman. [13] In August 2019, Lucidworks announced $100M in Series F funding led by Francisco Partners and TPG Sixth Street Partners, with existing investors Top Tier Capital Partners, Shasta Ventures, Granite Ventures and Allegis participating. [14]

Awards

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References

  1. 1 2 "Trouble at LucidWorks: Lawsuits, lost deals, & layoffs plague the search startup despite funding". VentureBeat. September 5, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  2. ↑ Carney, Michael (September 18, 2014). "LucidWorks debuts new Fusion platform, offers modularized, personalized search for the enterprise". Pando.
  3. ↑ Carney, Michael (September 10, 2014). "Under New CEO, Lucidworks Aims to Redefine Search and Itself".
  4. ↑ "Lucidworks Acquires Twigkit to Deliver Superior Enterprise Search Experience". May 10, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Reddit teams with Lucidworks to build new search framework – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. September 7, 2017. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
  6. ↑ Miller, Ron (September 7, 2017). "Reddit teams with Lucidworks to build new search framework". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
  7. ↑ Miller, Ron. "Lucidworks launches site search as a service tool". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  8. ↑ "Trouble at LucidWorks: Lawsuits, lost deals, & layoffs plague the search startup despite funding". VentureBeat. September 5, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  9. ↑ Novet, Jordan (September 5, 2014). "Trouble at LucidWorks: Lawsuits, lost deals, & layoffs plague the search startup despite funding". VentureBeat. Retrieved January 24, 2024.
  10. ↑ "Trouble at LucidWorks: Lawsuits, lost deals, & layoffs plague the search startup despite funding". VentureBeat. September 5, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  11. ↑ "SEC Form D". August 31, 2014.
  12. ↑ "Lucidworks Announces $21 Million in Series D Funding". November 18, 2015.
  13. ↑ "Lucidworks raises $50 million for companies to build smarter search into their applications". May 3, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Lucidworks raises $100M to expand in AI-powered search-as-a-service for organizations". August 12, 2019.
  15. ↑ Finalist for the 2010 Red Herring 100 North America Award
  16. ↑ Lucid Imagination Congratulates Apache Solr on InfoWorld Bossie Award Win
  17. ↑ InfoWorld's 2017 Technology of the Year Award winners
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