Powerset (company)

Powerset was a California-based company with technology to conduct searches on the internet using natural language processing (NLP). The technology was able to consider the semantic meaning behind keyword searches, not just the keywords themselves. It was focused on the structure of language so that users would get more relevant search results when using the product.

Product

Powerset was used to search articles using NLP on Wikipedia. Upon entering the keywords or question in the search engine box, users would be presented with relevant images, tags, and summaries.They could click on an article, which they would then view along with a side box containing "factz". The "factz" were brief facts that were related to the topic and users were also able to click on those in order to be taken to an article that was related to the previous one.

Funding and Acquisition

The company had two funding rounds, raising a total of $20.5 million. In 2008, Microsoft acquired Powerset for a reported $100 million. The technology was then integrated into Bing, Microsoft's own search engine.