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Despite ample investment money, the downtown Mountain View start-up Quixey is reportedly closing its doors. In recent days the tech company filed paperwork saying it was laying off nearly 50 employees and permanently closing its Castro Street offices.
Quixey launched in 2009 as a search engine for the rapidly growing app marketplace. The start-up quickly attracted investment capital, and by 2015 the company was being valued at $600 million.
But signs of problems emerged not long afterward. Early last year, a wave of employees departed as Quixey posted disappointing revenues. The company tried to pivot its business model from a search engine to advertising within apps.
Quixey’s main backer was the Chinese tech giant Alibaba, which signed a deal to invest about $110 million in the Silicon Valley start-up. But the relationship between the two companies had apparently become strained and Alibaba withheld further investment.
Quixey representatives declined to comment.
Quixey’s business got slow(xy) and they are becoming smaller.
Hopefully their Castro St. ground floor offices will become retail again.
Absolutely agree with ‘Vibrant Downtown’…ground floor space downtown should be limited to retail, restaurants etc. But without a mandate from city landlords will rent to the tenant with the deepest pockets and these days that is often a funded startup.
I’m sorry to see a business fail and know that 50 people are being laid off. I was laid off from Silicon Valley companies too many times, and I know the doom-and-gloom feeling all too well. I wish them all the best in their job searches. And I wish to say to the Quixey managers that I enjoyed peeking in your windows and seeing what seemed like good vibes and a company on its way up. I’m very sorry that it didn’t work out for you, but good for you for trying.
Bummer, that is too bad. I looked them up after seeing them downtown. They had a really good search engine. I was looking for a specific type of app, the Itunes app store only showed one app for a high cost. I used the Quixey search engine and found a whole page of similar apps. Dang, wish I would have saved that page!
For many, many people, the word “google” means search. Very difficult competing with that.
Castro needs a Philz
More restaurants in downtown– not gonna happen. Savvy operators see that with a few exceptions, current restaurants are at 60% capacity and parking is at 100%. Do the math. Meanwhile, the city eliminates parking and has made it clear that they will never add more. Palo Alto has added capacity. Redwood City is requiring as condition of development that private lots open to the public on non-business hours. Mountain View tries to social-engineer people away from using cars at the expense of our downtown. Dont know why restaurants who have paid MASSIVE $$ into the parking district dont sue the city. Council people will cherry pick and say “I was just at Eureka and it was packed!”, ignoring all the places with tons of empty tables.
The old Books inc space rented to a walk in bakery– the third one on Castro. Two will certainly fail. But thats the kind of use that can look past the parking nightmare
Castro St. needs a Modern Music Club on par with Slims or Great American Music Hall.
Please someone, take over that mess that is the “Monte Carlo” and do something constructive with it.
I will volunteer to manage the club till it gets rolling!!
Remember this area used to have the Keystone Palo Alto, the Edge and One Step Beyond nearby. Now we have Zip.
Its time for the “Deep Pockets” of Mountain View to step up to the plate.
Comment here if you have any helpful ideas how to make this happen!
Greedy, they shoulda cashed out at 600 mil.
A search engine for Apps is needed about as much as a search engine for Rocks.
I missed Quixey
@theShorlineDude
Maybe when you invest 10-15 million dollars in buying a suitable building, you can decide the demographic to which you choose to cater.
As for Quixey, don’t let the door hit on the butt on your way out….