Blekko, a search engine, isn’t exactly a flashy new startup. There’s the name for starters – it was something they came up with as a placeholder while they were stealth and decided that was a good long term name, too.
And then there was the whole Cuil fiasco. Which would make any new search startup blanch. So Blekko hasn’t turned on the hype machine at all. They’re just quietly doing their thing, and growing nicely.
Now, though, they’ve gone Hollywood. Ashton Kutcher (image is from TechCrunch50 2008), whose movie is currently no. 1 in box offices, is making a somewhat more geeky splash today. He’s invested $200,000 in Blekko, as an extension to the company’s most recent round of funding.
You can follow Ashton’s activities on Blekko here. The company has raised around $25 million in debt and equity capital to date.
Blekko is a search company founded by Rich Skrenta and his core team from previous company Topix and Netscape’s Open Directory. Blekko was founded halfway through 2007 and has already earned itself an angel round from Baseline Ventures and two ex-Googlers.
Ashton Kutcher is an actor, tech investor and producer. In 2011, Kutcher created a venture fund, A- Grade Investments, with Ron Burkle and Guy Oseary. A-Grade has invested in multiple tech companies including Spotify, Airbnb, Foursquare, Fab, Uber, Dwolla and Path. Kutcher is also co-founder of Katalyst, a media company creating original content for digital media, television and film. In 2010, Kutcher was named one of Time Magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential People. In that same year, his company, Katalyst,...
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