Best Search Engines Companies in California, United States
The 47 best Search Engines companies in California, United States in 2026, ranked by funding and momentum. Funding, investors, founders, valuation, tech stack and live signals. Top: Genspark.
Ranked: Best Search Engines companies in California
| # | Company | App-install YoY | Disclosed funding | Employees | Founder | Tech stack | Web popularity | Patents & IP focus | Recent signals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Perplexity 🦄 AI-powered search and answer generation 87Customers top 10%Funding top 11%Tech top 21%Growth top 25% All 14 signals ▾Customerstop 10% Fundingtop 11% Techtop 21% Growthtop 25% Partnerstop 27% Producttop 28% AItop 30% Newstop 31% Moattop 32% Innovationtop 35% Talenttop 45% Markettop 47% Patentstop 49% Globalbottom 39% Customers: Play-Store rating 4.58★ across 2,016,194 ratings (2 apps) · Review volume +5894% in 6 mo Funding: Raised $415M across 9 rounds · 9 rounds over 3 yrs (3.0/yr) rank vs industry peers · Fliar Intelligence Index 87/100 | +500% | $415M | 8 | Johnny Ho Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer | SentryZendeskApple iCloud Mail+24 | Top 5k | 4 patents AI-driven semantic search platforms and lightweight client integration | — |
| 2 | Wayback Machine Online platform providing keyword-based content search through the collection of webpages | +81% | — | — | Dan Sterantino Founder | — | — | — | — |
| 3 | Brave Developer of a browser and search engine focused on privacy | +36% | $7M | 68 | Brendan Eich Co-Founder & CEO | HugoApple iCloud MailGoogle Workspace+18 | Top 1k | — | — |
| 4 | CamFind Provider of an image recognition-based mobile visual search engine | +3% | $5M | 52 | — | Google CloudGSAPjQuery+7 | Top 5M | 4 patents Visual search and image analysis for e‑commerce product identification | — |
| 5 | Genspark 🦄 Provider of AI-powered productivity and workspace solutions | — | $545M | — | Lenjoy Lin Co-Founder | TypeScriptNode.jsGoogle Sign-in+29 | Top 5k | — | — |
| 6 | ProRata.ai Technology company that develops attribution solutions for generative artificial intelligence platforms | — | $66M | — | Tarek Najm Co-Founder & CTO | Wix eCommerceWixSentry+13 | Top 10M | — | — |
| 7 | Objective Provider of an AI-native semantic search engine platform | — | $13M | — | Pablo Mendes Co-Founder & CEO | — | — | 2 patents Personalized educational software for reading skill development and individualized learning plans | — |
| 8 | Neeva Provider of keyword-based private search engine | — | $78M | 74 | — | NginxCaddyHTTP/3 | Top 50M | 5 patents Blockchain search engine and asset/buyer ranking for trust and valuation | — |
| 9 | Trieve Infrastructure for building AI search into applications | — | $500K | — | Nicholas Khami Co-Founder | AstroCaddyCloudflare+8 | Top 10M | — | — |
| 10 | Odiggo NFT-based trading platform for books | — | $11M | — | Ahmed Nasser Co-Founder & CTO | — | — | 2 patents AI-driven clinical conversation analytics providing decision support for physicians | — |
| 11 | Fileread Provider of AI-powered platform provides answers to questions | — | $6M | 10 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 12 | Kosmix Online platform offering keyword-based search engine | — | $56M | 53 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 13 | Ask Ask.com: Your go-to source for answers, news, culture, and lifestyle | — | $25M | 505 | — | WordPress Block EditorWordPressApple iCloud Mail+15 | Top 100k | — | — |
| 14 | Powerset AI-enabled keyword based search-engine | — | $20M | 14 | — | — | — | 23 patents Semantic search and NLP: word sense, coreference, knowledge graph browsing, indexing. | — |
| 15 | Yahoo Provider of media insights, advertising solutions, and news and sports content | — | $10M | 9,339 | Michael Lemmons Vice President | Apple iCloud MailRubySalesforce+21 | Top 500k | 9,044 patents Targeted online advertising and user behavior analytics for personalized ad delivery | — |
| 16 | Ark Social People Search Engine client | — | $5M | 11 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 17 | nēdl Transcription solutions for radio listeners | — | $1M | 3 | Ayinde Alakoye Co-Founder & CEO | — | — | — | — |
| 18 | Info.com Provider of a keyword-based search engine platform | — | $899K | 194 | — | WordPressMySQLPHP+11 | Top 5M | — | — |
| 19 | GetFugu Developer of mobile-based search engine | — | $800K | — | Carl Johan Freer Founder | — | — | — | — |
| 20 | Phind Platform offering an AI-powered search engine for developers | — | $125K | 2 | — | — | — | 4 patents AI-driven location-based point‑of‑interest information retrieval and recommendation systems. | — |
Top 12 Search Engines companies in California
#1
Genspark 🦄Series B · Palo Alto, California · founded 2023$545Mraised▾
Provider of AI-powered productivity and workspace solutions. It automate knowledge work through intelligent agents, multi-model AI orchestration, and autonomous content generation tools. It combines web search, data collection, intelligent processing, and AI-generated outputs into a unified workspace powered by multi-agent artificial intelligence systems. Its solutions enable users to create presentations, spreadsheets, documents, applications, and business workflows through natural language prompts while integrating technologies from leading AI ecosystems.
- Mar 2026Series B$85M
- Jan 2026Series B$25M
- Nov 2025Series B$275M
- Feb 2025Series A$100M
#2
Series E · San Francisco, California · founded 2022 · 8 employees$415.4Mraised▾
AI-powered search and answer generation. It enables users to ask complex questions and receive concise, well-sourced answers synthesized from multiple web sources. The platform combines natural language understanding with real-time web data to provide accurate, context-aware responses.
- Dec 2025Angel—
- Sep 2025Series E$200M
- Jul 2025Series E$100M
- May 2025Series E$500M
#3
Series B · Pasadena, California · founded 2024$65.9Mraised▾
Technology company that develops attribution solutions for generative artificial intelligence platforms. It is a technology company that has developed a generative artificial intelligence attribution platform to enable the accurate attribution and compensation of content owners for the use of proprietary content.
- Aug 2025Series B$40M
- Sep 2024Seed$23.4M
- May 2024Seed$2.5M
#4
Series B · San Francisco, California · founded 2021$13Mraised▾
Provider of an AI-native semantic search engine platform. The company offers AI search engine platform that provides language models, multi-model hybrid search, and pragmatic tools.
- Oct 2023Series B$13M
#5
Acquired · Mountain View, California · founded 2019 · 74 employees$77.5Mraised▾
Provider of keyword-based private search engine. It offers ad-free private search results for users. The search engine offers features like customization of search results, shopping recommendations, searching from personal accounts, and more. The mobile application is available for IOS users.
- Mar 2021Series B$40M
- Jun 2020Series A$37.5M
#6
Acquired · San Francisco, California · founded 2023$500Kraised▾
Infrastructure for building AI search into applications. It combines search language models with tools for human fine-tuning, offering features such as date recency biasing, re-ranker models, semantic search, and sub-sentence capabilities. It offers a source available search platform with dense-vector semantic capabilities and RAG support compared to Algolia.
- Sep 2024Seed$3.5M
#7
Series A · San Francisco, California · founded 2019$11.3Mraised▾
NFT-based trading platform for books. It enables users to create, collect & sell digital collectibles including NFT books. It also allows users to explore non-fungible tokens. Users can upload books, add titles, pickup categories & customize book covers and list them for sale on the platform.
- Feb 2023Series A$2.3M
- Apr 2021Series A$8.1M
- Jan 2021Seed$600K
- May 2019Seed$180K
#8
Series A · Pasadena, California · founded 2020 · 10 employees$6.5Mraised▾
Provider of AI-powered platform provides answers to questions.It allows users to ask English questions about what they want to find and examine the answers directly. It is designed to be used in the legal industry, specifically for litigation story-building.
- Jun 2023Series A$6.5M
#9
Acquired · Mountain View, California · founded 2005 · 53 employees$55.5Mraised▾
Online platform offering keyword-based search engine. The platform enables users to search multiple data by providing keywords with filter options.
#10
Acquired · Oakland, California · founded 1996 · 505 employees$25Mraised▾
Ask.com: Your go-to source for answers, news, culture, and lifestyle. This platform delivers information across diverse categories like TV & Movies, Tech, Lifestyle, and more. It provides trending news, reviews, and roundups, covering topics from entertainment to technology. Editorial features explore subjects like food trends, digital disruption, and the impact of technology on various aspects of modern life. It offers a wide array of content, including articles on music, books, video games, and travel, aiming to inform and engage users with diverse interests. The platform serves as a comprehensive resource for staying updated on current events and exploring various facets of culture and lifestyle.
- Mar 1999Series A$25M
- 1997Unattributed—
#11
Acquired · San Francisco, California · founded 2006 · 14 employees$20.5Mraised▾
AI-enabled keyword-based search-engine. The platform enables users to search for data by using keywords and the system uses natural language processing algorithm to understand the meaning of semantic meaning behind the search and provide optimized search results for users.
- Jan 2007Conventional Debt$8M
- Nov 2006Series A$12.5M
#12
Acquired · Sunnyvale, California · founded 2000 · 9339 employees$9.9Mraised▾
Provider of media insights, advertising solutions, and news and sports content. It delivers custom advertising solutions designed to maximize engagement across various platforms. The business offers a demand-side platform providing control over first-party data for campaign customization. It also leverages technology to connect advertisers with audiences through search functionalities.
- Jan 2010Grant (prize money)$9.9M
Funding & investor landscape
Notable founders
Market landscape — 10 sub-themes by coverage
Share of Search Engines coverage by sub-theme.
Regulatory-risk over time rising
Funding & growth over time
funding rising · growth rising
Common questions
Sweetie watches where the money and the users are piling in. She covers sector wealth and momentum — the install curves and revenue pools that show which corners of the market are quietly on fire.