Carmel, Indiana based start-up ChaCha raised $4,o00,000 earlier this month according to a recent SEC filing. According to the filing, $2,000,000 of the capital raised will be used to pay off approximately $2,000,000 in debt owed to Citi Smith Barney.
The original incarnation of ChaCha never really made much sense to me – but the newer mobile search service is fabulous. I am a HUGE fan of all things Google, but the ChaCha mobile/SMS search service is waaaaay better than than Google’s SMS search. With Google I usually get back garbly goop – but ChaCha SMS sends back coherent, understandable (and usually very helpful and accurate) responses. Example – I sent a message to each service with the following question: “What time does the Indianapolis Children’s Museum open?” Google sent me a list of useless results that went on for 3 text messages. I may have the time and screen space to rummage through lots of results when searching Google on my laptop – but not on my blackberry. Cha Cha sent me exactly what I needed and more – the hours of operation and the phone number for the Children’s Museum.
I have seen Cha Cha take some heat online, most notably from TechCrunch. Maybe some of it is deserved, who knows. But you can’t deny that they keep on chugging (or Cha Cha-ing). They redefined themselves by ditching what was probably a bad idea and diving into mobile search. And they continue to raise capital. Still not really sure what is up with the office space right in Clay Terrace – but then again I guess it is walking distance to Qdoba.
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