Xobni
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Xobni Corporation | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Type | Private (venture-backed) |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
| Key people | Jeff Bonforte, CEO Gabor Cselle, VP Engineering Adam M. Smith, Co-Founder Matt Brezina, Co-Founder |
| Industry | Email Applications |
| Website | www.xobni.com |
Xobni is a San Francisco-based email startup. It was founded in March 2006 by Adam Smith and Matt Brezina from Adam's dorm room in Cambridge, Massachusetts as part of the Y Combinator summer founder's program. In late 2006, it relocated to San Francisco when the founders' perception that the environment there was more suited to grow their company.[1]
In March 2007, Xobni hired its first employee, Gabor Cselle, a Software Engineer from Google[2]. He had previously worked on researching users' email organization patterns[3]. In the same month, Xobni raised $4.26 million[4] from Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, and Atomico, along with a number of angel investors[5].
Xobni's first product, Xobni Insight, was launched into private beta on September 18, 2007, at the TechCrunch 40 conference. Xobni Insight plugs into Microsoft Outlook and offers fast search and people-based navigation of email archives. The company has hinted at plans to offer the same functionality for other email clients[6]. Xobni Insight has received mostly positive coverage[7][8][9], although initial versions had performance problems on large inboxes[10]. The company opened [11]its beta to the public on May 5, 2008.
In February 2008, Xobni hired Jeff Bonforte, a Vice President at Yahoo, as their CEO[12]. In the same month, Bill Gates gave a demo of Xobni at the Office Developer's Conference[13]. This led to rumors of a $20M acquisition by Microsoft, which the company reportedly rejected[14].
"Xobni" is the word "inbox" spelled backwards. It is pronounced Zob-nee[15].
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Mass High Tech: Fear, greed or comfort: What makes (Boston) VCs invest?
- ^ Gabor Cselle: A Healthy Disregard for the Impossible
- ^ Gabor Cselle: Organizing Email
- ^ Om Malik: Can Xobni cure Outlookâs ills?
- ^ Xobni Blog: List of investors
- ^ TechCrunch 40: Productivity & Web Apps - Panel Video
- ^ Venturebeat: Email Company Xobni Launches, may Steal TechCrunch Prize
- ^ MIT Technology Review: Xobni - A New Look for Outlook
- ^ Newsweek: Reinventing the Inbox
- ^ Xobni Blog: Improving performance
- ^ NY Times: If You Use Outlook E-mail, Meet Xobni
- ^ Xobni Blog: Jeff Bonforte Joins Xobni as CEO
- ^ Gabor Cselle: Bill Gates demos Xobni
- ^ TechCrunch: Microsoft may buy Email Startup Xobni
- ^ Xobni FAQ
