Stealthy Metaweb Raises $15M For Web Infrastructure Technology

By Clancy Nolan

Excerpt from VentureWire, March 14, 2006

Metaweb Technologies Inc., a stealthy developer of Web infrastructure technology, has disclosed it raised $15 million in venture capital financing.

Benchmark Capital led the round, which included participation from Millennium Technology Ventures, Omidyar Network and undisclosed individuals. A spokeswoman for Metaweb and Benchmark declined to comment on the company or venture capital financing.

As a result of the round, Benchmark General Partner Kevin Harvey joins Metaweb as a director.

The "metaweb" is a system designed to provide Internet users the ability to more efficiently locate and use information. The idea is to help people make better use of the vast information sources online.

Metaweb began last year inside Glendale, Calif.-based technology incubator Applied Minds Inc., which was co-founded by Danny Hillis, also the founder and chairman of Metaweb. Applied Minds provides hardware, software and engineering technology and consulting to companies and the defense industry. Applied Minds has also raised capital from venture capital from firms including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Millennium Technology Ventures.

Hillis is a veteran technologist and inventor, and is credited as one of the developers of parallel computing technology. He formed Thinking Machines Inc., a developer of the technology, in 1983, and later worked as an imagineer for The Walt Disney Company.

According to its Web site, San Francisco-based Metaweb also employs alumni from companies including Netscape Communications Corp., The Internet Archive, Intel Corp. and Broderbund Software Inc.

Metaweb said it is currently hiring for software engineers, quality assurance engineers, network architects and other technical posts.

http://www.metaweb.com