Metaweb
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Technology, Data management |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Founder | Danny Hillis, Veda Hlubinka-Cook, John Giannandrea |
| Fate | Acquired by Google in 2010 |
| Successor | |
| Headquarters | San Francisco , United States |
Area served | Global |
Key people | Kevin Harvey (board member) |
| Products | Freebase |
| Parent | Google (since 2010) |
Metaweb Technologies, Inc. was a company located in San Francisco that created Freebase, a collaborative and open database encompassing global knowledge. Established in 2005 by Danny Hillis, Veda Hlubinka-Cook, and John Giannandrea, Metaweb specialized in solutions for managing data aimed at improving automation in web search.
In 2010, the company was purchased by Google. Google terminated Freebase in 2016, transferring significant portions of its data to Wikidata to maintain the support for structured knowledge repositories.
Funding
On March 14, 2006, Metaweb obtained $15 million in investment from firms such as Benchmark Capital, Millennium Technology Ventures, and Omidyar Network. Later, on January 15, 2008, the company revealed a $42.5 million Series B funding round led by Goldman Sachs alongside Benchmark Capital. Kevin Harvey, representing Benchmark Capital, held a position on Metaweb's board of directors.
Acquisition
Google acquired Metaweb on July 16, 2010, for an undisclosed sum.