Human powered search startup ChaCha has been good for so many chuckles over the last few years. One of their investors called them as disruptive as Google, for example. Another time we posted their answer to a question about what time a show in Seattle opened its doors (trust me, you’ll love the answer, which I have also embedded in this post). We’ve just generally picked on this company incessantly – see our posts here, start from the bottom and work up.
So when I saw an email from the company’s PR person this evening, I had high hopes to be entertained. They didn’t let me down.
“ChaCha Funding” read the subject line. One thing this company hasn’t failed at is raising large amounts of cash – maybe as much as $58 million. In the email they ask me if we’d like exclusive funding news, so long as we only talk to them. I said sure but went ahead and looked up the funding filing on the SEC website anyway (they raised $4 million). But the best part was their almost immediate response letting me know that they no longer wanted to talk. This entire exchange, from offer to acceptance to revocation of the offer, took 27 minutes.
So there you have it. ChaCha has raised another $4 million from some investor or investors. Whoever it is, we may never know.
From: “”
Date: July 23, 2009 8:36:28 PM PDT
To: “Michael Arrington”
Subject: RE: ChaCha FundingChaCha was informed they cannot make this funding news public in accordance with rules regarding public disclosure. I’m sorry, the company will not be speaking with any media about its filing.
From: Michael Arrington
Sent: Thu 7/23/2009 11:31 PM
To:
Subject: Re: ChaCha FundingOk
On Jul 23, 2009, at 8:01 PM, “” wrote:
Today ChaCha filed form D with the SEC, closing additional funding.
I will be able to provide you with more information about this round
EXCLUSIVELY in exchange that TechCrunch only publish news from
sources at ChaCha, as opposed to other third parties.Would you be interested in receiving the funding news?
Best,