3i has invested €2.6 million in European shopping search engine Twenga, which launched in the UK in early November. The service has been fairly successful by focusing all its resources on Europe and comes translated in six different languages (French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and English). The network reached 7 million visitors in November 2007 and indexed over 40 million offers from 25,000 merchants. Because it has no retailer bias product listings are not skewed in favour of one retailer over another, and the inventory of products is large. Consumers can narrow down search results from the largest possible product offering based on brand, colour, material, shop, price and product features. Twenga’s search results include user reviews and images on top of the usual price comparisons. It also has several advanced features include price tracking and user reviews, allowing it to return a more complex result such as a 10% price drop in a product. There are of course a mass of shopping product search engines including The Find, Mpire, Crowdstorm, Bountii, Retrevo, SmartShopper, Pricefight and Ugenie. → Read More
3i has invested €2.6 million in shopping search engine Twenga. Similar to other shopping search startups, Twenga is a meta search engine for products from online merchants. Twenga’s search results include user reviews and images on top of the usual price comparisons. There are a ton of shopping product search engines out there right now. It’s a crowded space and to distinguish themselves companies have been focusing on advanced features such as deep product feature search (Retrevo) or price trend tracking (Mpire) to stand out. There’s The Find, Mpire, Crowdstorm, Bountii, Retrevo, SmartShopper, Pricefight, Ugenie, and many more. Google had it’s own notable stumble in online product search as well. Of the engines, Twenga is most like “The Find”. Search results are returned as a wall of product images and can be refined by price and features. It also has several advanced features include price tracking and user reviews. This allows the engine to run more complex searches properties such as a 10% price drop. It also focuses on Europe and comes translated in an impressive six different languages (French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and English). The network reached 7 million visitors in November 2007 and indexed over 40 million offers from 25,000 merchants With so much choice, there’s no excuse to not get the lowest price on your Christmas gifts. CrunchBase Information Twenga TheFind.com Crowdstorm Bountii Retrevo Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
San Francisco, CA
