TheFind.com
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet, E-commerce |
| Predecessor | FatLens Inc. |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Fate | Acquired by Facebook, Inc. and discontinued |
| Headquarters | Mountain View , United States |
| Products | Discovery shopping search engine |
| Parent | Facebook, Inc. (from 2015) |
TheFind.com was an online search engine based in Mountain View that specialized in discovery shopping, concentrating on lifestyle categories such as clothing, accessories, home and garden, fitness, family and children, as well as health and beauty products. On March 13, 2015, Facebook, Inc. purchased TheFind.com for an undisclosed sum and subsequently discontinued the website.
History
Originally established in 2006 under the name FatLens Inc., the enterprise began by focusing on event ticket searches before shifting its emphasis to product search. The platform was rebranded as TheFind.com on October 31, 2006, targeting discovery shopping within lifestyle product segments. Initial investment was provided by Redpoint Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Cambrian Ventures. In 2007, the company secured an additional $15 million funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures.
After Facebook acquired TheFind.com in 2015, the service was promptly shut down, with a portion of its workforce joining Facebook’s team. Visitors to the original site were redirected to Facebook’s main page.
Business model
Unlike conventional comparison shopping engines typically focused on electronics, TheFind.com positioned itself as a discovery shopping search platform. Its catalog featured over 500 million items from upwards of 500,000 retailers, aggregated through web crawling and direct merchant data feeds. Product listings were organized based on relevance and popularity using proprietary ranking algorithms rather than paid placement strategies. Users interested in products were linked directly to merchant websites to finalize purchases.
Growth
By March 28, 2007, TheFind.com announced a remarkable 540% surge in unique visitors since its launch on October 31, 2006, increasing from 141,625 visits in November 2006 to an anticipated monthly rate exceeding 900,000 by March 2007. The platform sustained a monthly visitor growth exceeding 35% during the first quarter of 2007. Quantcast.com reported that by November 2008, TheFind.com attracted approximately 7 million visitors each month. In May 2010, Comscore Media Metrix ranked it as the second largest shopping search engine with over 20 million monthly users.
On August 29, 2007, TheFind.com broadened its market footprint through the acquisition of Glimpse.com, a women's fashion shopping website.
Charitable campaigns
TheFind.com organized "Color for a Cause" initiatives to raise funds for charitable organizations by donating one dollar per user search containing a specified color. In January 2007, this campaign generated $10,000 for Doctors Without Borders via searches including the color red. In April of the same year, searches featuring pink helped support Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s breast cancer research efforts.