Estimated Value: $150 million
Business: A human-powered search engine where users edit search results and build SERPs (search results pages). Think Wikipedia meets Google.
Location: Santa Monica, CA
More Info: About Mahalo
CEO: Jason Calacanis
Investors: Sequoia Capital, Elon Musk, News Corp.
Analysis: People powered search? Sounds goofy. But Mahalo attracted 2.4 million uniques after just 6 months and is now close to 4 million.
The thinking behind Mahalo is that 1) a small fraction of search queries (and results pages) account for a vast percentage of overall searches (true) and 2) human beings can build better SERPs than an algorithm. Don't believe it? Then explain why Wikipedia is so popular. Mahalo is essentially a commercial, focused Wikipedia, and, so far, it seems to be doing quite well.
We believe Mahalo recently raised a round of capital at an $85 million valuation. The company has grown significantly since then. We estimate a valuation of $150 million.