Accoona Who? Search Firm Files To Go Public

from the searching-for-investors dept

Tue, Aug 7th 2007 12:35pm — Joseph Weisenthal

Hoping to capitalize on investor love for Google, search engine Accoona recently filed with the SEC to go public. However, John Battelle did some digging through the company's S-1 filing and finds that this one looks pretty fishy. The company has gotten no traction in its core search business, so in order to goose revenues, the company has bought out a number of money-losing e-commerce firms that have nothing to do with its main business. Other red flags stick out as well, such as the company's assertion that it's got interesting things going on in China, an attempt to associate itself with another hot area. Finally, the company will go public through a Google-like Dutch auction, in a blatant move to build up more hype. Obviously, the IPO window has widened in the past year, as more tech companies have been able to go public. But investors seemed to have kept their wits about them, and it seems highly unlikely that an also-ran search firm that few people have ever heard of will capture the public's imagination.

Filed Under: search
Companies: accoona, google

10 Comments

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Tarky7, 7 Aug 2007 @ 1:15pm

First !
YAY !

Oh, Yeah. This IPO is a scam ! Mike, right, more often then not !

;)
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Tim, 7 Aug 2007 @ 1:48pm

Price
Whats the asking price?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2007 @ 2:55pm

1.76 a share
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roxi, 7 Aug 2007 @ 3:05pm

Nice search
I really like how searches for basic keywords return zero results.
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Shohat, 7 Aug 2007 @ 3:57pm

YOU MUST TRY IT !
I just tried out their search engine.

I my search query was : "fuck"
Top results :

1. Google
www.google.com/

2. WordPress › Blog Tool and Weblog Platform
wordpress.org/
(third result actually is somewhat relevant)

3.NetNanny - Keeping your kids safe on the Internet
www.netnanny.com/

(WTF ?!!? Yale ?!)
4. Yale University
www.yale.edu/

6.EFF: Blue Ribbon Campaign
Here at EFF, we continue to fight for the right to free speech.
www.eff.org

7.DefendAmerica - U.S. Defense Dept. War on Terror:
www.defendamerica.mil/

What an Awesome search engine it is. Can't wait for the IPO.
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Charles Griswold, 7 Aug 2007 @ 4:55pm

Productive(?) Searches
I did a search for "spyware" and found lots of (you guessed it) spyware. Result number 7 even promised "free spyware".

Neato!
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GoblinJuice, 7 Aug 2007 @ 6:13pm

Who?
Just tried their engine.

Oh, jesus... this blows chimp. =|

And their logo sucks!!! =D
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2007 @ 3:58am

I tried searching for terms like google and asp.net and it responded with "Your search - asp.net - did not match any web results documents."

DUH !
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raccoona, 8 Aug 2007 @ 9:09am

LOL
Not to mention the fact that the company has had several top executive "resign" for mis-management of assets and resources. Many of the top board members have at some point been under investigation by the SEC, and a few have even been indicted as well. Whatever hare-brained MBA came up with this business plan is surely to be strung up by the investors he duped into this venture.

All this, and a year ago they were claiming to have had 120 million dollars in excess capital. Where'd it go? Why hasn't it been used to hire talent that would propel the business forward? The talent they did have, is gone now, due to complacency and boredom. It seems as thought it was engineered to be a money-pit. An exercise in capital-venture money laundering. One fruitless pursuit after another, and little to show for it other than blatant corpspeak.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2007 @ 12:08pm

LOL indeed
They got a new CEO because the old CEO (still attached to the company) was previously prosecuted for securities fraud... here we go again!
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