Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Mimvi

Mimvi is a startup that plans to combine its proprietary search, recommendation and personalization technology and thus enable consumers to rapidly discover mobile apps and content across all devices and platforms.
The Mimvi website allows you to search for apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry as well as web applications. Enter a keyword, e.g. eBay or fart, and you’ll get a list of relevant search results you can download per platform. In the future, Mimvi will also return results for iPad, Windows Mobile and Nokia applications and even for the upcoming Chrome Web Store.
Only interested in one platform? Mimvi also operates dedicated vertical search engines for them, e.g. Mivi Apple and Mimvi Android. They also boast a category-specific one, namely Mimvi Games.
The goal for Mimvi in this phase is to build an ecosystem of revenue-generating API partners.
Franks says that as a company, the plan is to be publicly traded on the OTCBB, a relatively new model for startups which need access to the capital markets, and move on to get listed on NASDAQ next.
Interestingly, Franks told me he’s currently in partnership talks with both Google and Microsoft – already. Pressed for what those talks entail, he said they are jointly exploring ways in which they could initially partner, but also grow the relationship where both parties benefit, potentially leading to a more extensive strategic partnership or even a joint investment.
It will be interesting to watch where Franks and his team can take the concept of a unified search engine for mobile apps, content and other products.