ChaCha, the human-powered answers service we’ve written about quite a bit here on TechCrunch, is raising a Series C round of $30 million, of which close to $11 million has already been secured according to a regulatory filing, reports peHUB. The filing doesn’t list any new shareholders.
Update: we exchanged e-mails with a company representative, who informed us that this is actually “old news” and that the Series C round of $30 million has actually closed a couple of months ago.
The company raised $6 million in Series A financing exactly two years ago from Jeff Bezos and Bezos Expeditions, followed by a $10 million round by Morton Meyerson and 21st Century Technology Fund. If ChaCha closes the $30 million Series C round (see update above), the total capital invested in the company will amount up to a whopping $46 million.
In case you’ve never heard of ChaCha, it’s essentially a search engine that lets users ask questions to a real person, called a “search guide”, via the web, text message or a mobile website (answers are only provided by mobile). We’ve called it a dumb idea in the past, and unscalable on numerous occasions, but it’s not the only startup that’s taking a crack at a human-powered Q&A service (Mahalo launched a similar service last month, Answerly is another one).
We’ve reached out to the company to confirm that they’re raising more venture capital, as well as the names of the investors. (see update above)
Cha-Cha is very helpful and convenient. That must be some of the reasons why it is now earning a lot. People nowadays are looking forward on having more ways to make life more comfortable and advance.
ChaCha is earning alot? News to me. They have a company renown for slamming as their primary advertiser (Predicto) and have been screwing with guide pay for 4 months straight like they’re about to go under any moment.
Not much to say about that really. It’s a sad sad day. That service is incredibly irrelevant imo. People use search engines to find information quick; not to spend a 2 minute dialogue with someone clarifying what you mean, and what you’re searching for.
They must have great sales men and even better connections.
They dont use search engines when they arnt at a computer. I used ChaCha countless times while I was at tailgates for PSU football. Helped me find other scores and things. Just because you are at a computer all the time doesnt mean others are. The key point when creating a startup is to think about how other people will use it, not the tech crowd.
I love Cha Cha. It’s perfect for those questions that you can’t quite figure out how to ask a keyword search engine. My most recent questions for Cha Cha:
* Has Robocop ever played guitar in one of his movies?
* Are Hosea and Leah (from the current season of top chef) still with the significant others they had before the show?
* Are all midgets twins?
* Do magnets stick on parking meters?
* How much do flower shops markup flowers?
It’s simple. Cha Cha business gets access to latest trends based on customer questions. And besides that, they are targeting people other than TC crowd.
Either Chacha is lucky or the VC’s didnt find any good places to invest this quarter
Maybe you are right.
We are looking since more than 24 month to get an VC onboard.
We have a profit oriented business model and high demand and holistic solution set for a steady growing niche markt with a billion dollar revenue potential.
But the VC dont take the time to become familiar with it and to understand it.
The most of them want a copy/paste solution, because it’s proven … Other prefer to burn their cash into things which have a small or no chance to gain a significant market value in their area and more worst, they have no grabbing business model…
I think the most VCs out there are not forward thinkers. They jump on a trend-train to make quick cash.
But how Peter Lynch has said:
“Who buys the same stocks (fund startups) like all other, has the same results like all others!”
In this spirit … happy ‘copy and paste’!
)
with a name like ChawChaw they’d be better off if they focused on salsa dancing. who needs human powered search when you can have Social Networked Natural Language Location? hopefully they will make some mergers and acquisitions with the funding. there domain name and vision needs a makeover.
HumanLocator.com – finding beings
“there domain name and vision needs a makeover”
…….still reeling from being slapped by the overwhelming irony………..
Nice way to get your websites on a blog where 200 people will see it.
I see Twitter as becoming more of the ideal human powered search.
That’s a very good point, but it takes time to build up a community of followers who can answer your questions.
True, but couple that with search and you can find answers to very recent event questions. It’s been very useful for me on occasion. For example, before the Obama Inauguration you could do a quick search in Twitter and find out the best links for streams. You could also use it to gauge how well each service was holding up in real time.
Not really, try search.twitter.com and you’ll often find very good search results that many times are not even indexed by Google.
If twitter works on their search, they can go a long way.
You not only find web links about a subject, but people that know about the subject, and that’s a very good added value to search.
Good point. Followers may answer or random people who’ve searched/hash-searched.
Sorry cha-cha is still a dumb idea, a lot of people will lose a lot of money.
If you have a capable handheld device, and most people do these days, its really no problem getting onto Yahoo Answers or Mahalo when you’re on the go.
Only in case you get a good filter = problem
Only if your question is so simple that you can answer it yourself.
VCs that invested into this are dumber than doorknobs. They’ll see a giant ZERO as returns from this. Cha-cha’s a stinker.
ChaCha has shown that they can bring in large advertisers such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, etc and even form a partnership with AT&T. They know what they are doing and seem to be doing it very well.
There are other companies trying to imitate what ChaCha does now, except they want charge their users for answers where as ChaCha is free to use.
I think that the investors, which are not dumb, have made a good investment.
The large advertisers cited (Coca-Cola, McDonald’s) suggest that they are focused on branding ad placements (please correct me if I’m wrong and for the initial skepticism). Advertisers who are looking for branding do not pay the same as advertiser seeking targeted search results. I know I’m stating the obvious, but I’m talking about the difference between an eCPM in the single digits for a branding campaign, to an eCPM in the hundreds for targeted search. If ChaCha’s aim is to generate a lot of online inventory, and monetize with low value advertising, I think it’s a losing battle. If they can convert their traffic into high-relevant, pay-per-performance, then they have a shot at an outsized return.
Stupid people don’t have $30 million dollars.
Haven’t been around the high tech industry for very long have you. Stupid people are given fortunes every day to sink into oblivion with.
Long Island Girl said…
Cha-Cha is very helpful and convenient.
Convenient in what regards? Don’t be a sucker.
I think that Cha-Cha is more like an online Psychic Service, that users can send a question to a psychic’s website and they will return the answers in some hours later.
Convenient in the fact that I don’t have to load up my little screen and search through Google results to try and find my answer if I am out on the road.
I can call, or text, in my question and just wait for an answer. To me, when I am in need of a number, address, or other information on the go, this is VERY convenient.
I’ve used ChaCha for up to date stock quotes on the run. It works great.
Please login or signup to submit your question
Wow……….
Try texting 242242 with your question or calling 1-800-2ChaCha. The reason they have you signup is so you can view your recent questions and answers.
Do you complain everytime you visit a site that requires you to signup? If so, you must complain A LOT.
I don’t complain, I just don’t use the site.
What I am curious about is what happens if some lawsuit-happy American lady bombards them with important serious questions for a few months, and acts according to the correct answers.
At some point, they fail to answer correctly. (And this is humans we are talking about, and probably not exactly Theoretical Physicists either) Lady boards wrong flight/takes wrong route/buys wrong car/invades wrong country.
If ChaCha’s
{
(http://answers....com/?page_id=46)
”
ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED BY OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE SITE OR THE SERVICES HAS NOT BEEN VERIFIED, AND NEITHER CHACHA NOR ANY GUIDE GUARANTEES, REPRESENTS, OR WARRANTS THAT SUCH INFORMATION IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE, RELIABLE, OR OTHERWISE VALID. CHACHA DOES NOT ENDORSE OR RECOMMEND, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS LIABILITY FOR, ANY PRODUCT, MANUFACTURER, DISTRIBUTOR, SERVICE OR SERVICE PROVIDER MENTIONED IN ANY QUERY OR RESPONSE.
”
}
defense fails in court, company pretty much hits the deadpool.
This has been tested in court in the case of newspaper columnists giving advice for readers. The court decided it’s you get what you pay for kinda thing.
ChaCha gives advise on everything from drug prescriptions to weapon laws without any kind of disclaimer.
Can you imagine what’s going to happen in the civil case when some one dies from a drug overdose because they asked ChaCha if they could mix drug X with drug Y and ChaCha gave them incorrect interaction advice rather than telling them to call their pharma?
Civil juries love dead body cases when it comes to taking out a company.
Cha Cha might be useful afterall. {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/wdkupyAXRl_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Cha Cha might be useful afterall. ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/kVnr1WXpSt”}}}
Jason: Good comments but the one thing you said that jumped out to me that I think bodes poorly for ChaCha was you said… “You are out with friends and no-one has an iPhone.”
What are the odds these days that #1 you are out with friends and…
1. You need info you don’t have at hand and will die if you don’t get it.
2. No one has a smartphone that can browse web.
3. You can’t call someone you know who is in front of a browser.
Also the only people who tend to really crave info on these terms at spur of moment pretty much already HAVE smartphones with 3G.
So I guess I’m sceptical.
Roger
To the first poster: The post did NOT suggest ChaCha is currently making money or revenue. It just stated they raised a lotta money. That’s not the same as making money. Raising money shouldn’t even be commendable in some cases.
What I don’t understand is if someone has a mobile phone and has access to ChaCha in their mobile phone, can’t they just go to Google to find out the answer to their question? Just do a simple query.. am I missing something here? Most people are used to quickly accessing Google Maps if they need directions.. Yelp if they need to find a good restaurant to eat at.. weather.com for the latest weather.. Yahoo Finance for the latest stocks…
It’s not a stupid idea, in that it probably solves a need for some people – I just do not see it being mainstream.
You do realize the web interface was shut down a LONG time ago. Do some research before posting information like this. ChaCha is completely mobile.
http://chacha.com/ask/
Yea, but that isn’t the same as a chat interface. You don’t talk with the guide via the webpage. You submit a question and wait for it to come back to your phone.
Right, adjusted the wording, thanks.
“Please login or signup to submit your question ”
wtf?
I’d love to see those financials, they must be awesome to be able to pull that kind of funding, or whoever is pitching it is the master of master bullshitters
Oh… mobile…
I guess they’ll be able to milk it until:
- We still don’t have real broadband access everywhere.
- All phones support a decent web browser
and even after that, you got the market of people that has no clue on how to use a browser, much less on a phone.
I have an iphone (which has a great mobile browser) and I still choose to text questions to ChaCha. Sometimes you just don’t have time to pour over search results looking for answers to some rather obscure questions.
We’ve had access to internet in the home and on the go for a while, yet people still use 411 and pay stupid amounts of money for a phone number.
With ChaCha you can do it for free. There are more people then you think that love being able to just get an answer instead of looking for one.
You’re not going to BS anybody out of $30 mil. Their agreement with AT&T is the key. The focus is on internet access in places where you can’t get it. Like while driving a car.
Say what you want about ChaCha, but the mobile service is really cool and convenient. The idea of texting a question and getting a quick, thorough answer is pretty valuable to me. The web chat interface, IMO, is not going to be their bread and butter.
Yeh because the only people who know about this “service”, already own an internet enable mobile phone.
Nah, ChaCha is useless man. if I got an obscure question, I google it. first few results usually gives me the answer. if it doesn’t for you, you need to have better googling skills. ChaCha is useless
ChaCha has 3 million unique users.
Tier 1 carriers will begin charging for standard rate messages this year. If they set the price high business models that depend on nearly free messaging will not survive. Mobile advertising won’t solve the problem either. Not to mention as browsers and the mobile internet become more ubiquitous consumers won’t need the ‘human’ interaction. To pour $30m into a business model with known problems makes one wonder.
ChaCha has negotiated “fee-free” calls for ChaCha customers.
Chacha.com, i thought the name is for dance search engine or music search engine.
WOW nic progress
Alan hit the nail on the head.
“Convenient in the fact that I don’t have to load up my little screen and search through Google results to try and find my answer if I am out on the road.
I can call, or text, in my question and just wait for an answer. To me, when I am in need of a number, address, or other information on the go, this is VERY convenient.”
Granted, I don’t know if ChaCha is the right approach. They don’t seem to be generating enough revenue to sustain themselves with advertising and their model is fairly limited as a platform so anybody with a lower cost basis could come in and replace them.
Many major businesses in highly competitive industries make themselves a platform to create network effects that keep them in a position of power.
Microsoft did it, Facebook is trying to do it, and I just do see ChaCha erecting those sames barriers to competition.
They’ve instituted some kind of 4 question limit every 72 hours. That’s quite a limit!
Not a time to be taking money rather than a time to be trying to be useful,
before taking on extra money was cha cha anything but wealthy contacts the ceo had, no.
lesson to be learned theirs a idiot anywhere when easy money is to be had.
Good luck Chacha [in some Indian language it stands for wise uncle]..
This is a reason why the economy is so f-ed up, investing in crap.
ChaCha is *SO* lame!
I tried it with a few questions about economics and technology that every person reading the average daily newspapers and got no answers, only search results from a search engine.
Thanks a lot, I could do that myself!
ChaCha is cool, I hear their agents are using Scour.com to search for cha cha users and get points for themselves at the same time.
Personally, I prefer http://www.scour.com as the ultimate search engine!
-O
waiting for this one to implode too…how the hell do they make money?
ChaCha is useless. Case closed
Cool, neato. Who cares? They do not and will not ever make the common man’s life better or easier. They will NOT IPO, they will NOT be bought by Yahoo or IAC or Microsoft, and they will NOT be cash flow positive and be bought by a PE firm.
Some VCs just don’t want to write off their idiotic investment (at least before they get this year’s bonus and get a new job). This is the kind of mentality that 1) Has created major financial problems in this country, and 2) Has stopped quality companies from getting the cash they need to create real value.
What a joke. Not the funny kind.
The service is kinda cool, but economics will never work. As implicitly confirmed by their 4 question limit within 72 hours.
Last night I asked about store hours for a local massage parlor and they got it right. Prior to getting the answer they sent about 4 other texts promoting their kill-time services…trivia, horoscopes, music lyrics, etc. It actually was an OK way to waste about 5 mins and 7-8 texts.
I also got a cryptic message about chance to win $50 if i call an 800 number. And guess who that was for? The frauds at Jingle and their 800-Free-411 service.
So ChaCha and it’s broken rev model is getting Jingle to advertise it’s broken rev model service.
And btw, has anyone used kgb? Short code KGB-KGB (542-542). It’s run by a real company, Inf0-NXX. They provide human powered directory service for most carriers. They understand the economics of both spaces. They’re charging $0.50 a message for a similar text service that ChaCha is providing for free.
One of these guys is closer to understanding the real cost of of providing an SMS-based Q&A service. Any guess who it might be? The guys playing with their own money or those using OPM?
ChaCha does have a 4 question per 72 hour limit that they are experimenting with, but it is only for people texting in their questions. You can call 1-800-2ChaCha for unlimited questions. You are also able to send in a feedback grade if you are not happy with your question, i.e. FB A for answers you liked, and FB B, C, D or F for those that were not as good as you would have expected.
Contrary to other people’s statements on here, not everyone has or can afford an internet enabled phone. I know I can’t use the internet feature on mine without a bunch of extra charges, and I could not imagine calling one of my friends to look up some information for me. Therefore it makes a lot of sense for me to be able to ask ChaCha and get the answer. I think ChaCha is great, even more so because it is FREE to use, and the great majority of time, you get great answers back.
شكر لكم
@adam – Depending on Twitter alone for quick answers to questions isn’t going to give you good results unless you have 300+ followers actually reading your tweets. Twitter Answers (an app from Mosio which is way cooler than chacha, imo) is a great way to show the power of Twitter, applied to a mobile questions and answers community where speed of responses is key.
http://www.mosio.com/twitter
How this will do in coming days ? – Pradeep
Why the F is there a 4 per 7 days limit now? I loved chacha, it’s like my buddy, but it’s annoying that I have to select the top 4 out of my billion questions every 7 days. What’s the point of this limit? And I know the call is unlimited but who’s gonna ask a wierd or personal question out loud in a meeting or something in public?
great job ,wow it is very progress thanks