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§ Private Profile · Melbourne, Australia
Marqo is a technology company.
Marqo powers AI search, recommendations, and discovery with LLMs trained on brand specific product data and shopper behavior, optimized to drive measurable revenue growth.
Marqo has raised $18.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Marqo has raised $18.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Marqo is a Melbourne, Australia-based technology company that builds an open-source, end-to-end multimodal vector search engine, enabling developers to store and query unstructured data like text, images, and code via a single API.[2][4][6] It serves e-commerce brands, developers, and AI application builders by solving the challenge of searching vast unstructured data—up to 90% of all data—through semantic, typo-tolerant, and real-time AI-powered search that boosts conversion and revenue.[1][4][5] Marqo offers a cloud platform for production-scale deployment with integrations for Shopify, Adobe Commerce, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud, delivering quick ROI like +16% revenue added to cart and +17.7% sitewide conversion uplift for customers such as Kicks Crew.[1][2]
The company has raised $17.7M total funding, including a $12.5M round and an earlier $5.2M seed led by Blackbird Ventures, fueling cloud service scaling and e-commerce-focused AI search enhancements.[2][3]
Marqo was founded in June 2022 in Melbourne by Jesse Clark, former lead machine learning scientist at Amazon's robotics unit in Seattle, and Tom Hamer, previously a database software engineer at AWS in Sydney.[4] The idea emerged from the founders' expertise in AI and databases, targeting the pain of handling unstructured data amid rising generative AI demands, where traditional tools fall short on vector search integration.[4][6]
Early traction came via an open-source launch as a tensor search framework, quickly building a developer community on GitHub, Slack, and forums, with seed funding in 2023 from Blackbird Ventures, Creator Fund, January Capital, and Cohere co-founders.[2][3][4] This pivot to a full cloud platform marked a pivotal moment, enabling real-time, production-grade search.[3][4]
Marqo rides the vector database boom fueled by generative AI and LLMs, where high-quality data structuring is critical for applications like product discovery and information retrieval.[3][4] Timing aligns with e-commerce's shift from keyword to semantic search, as consumers demand natural language and visual queries amid exploding unstructured data.[1][5][6]
Market forces like AI-native tools displacing legacy providers (e.g., Elasticsearch) favor Marqo, enhancing categories like search without creating from scratch.[5] It influences the ecosystem by open-sourcing technology, attracting developers, and enabling faster AI adoption in production, particularly for sales-driven verticals.[3][4]
Marqo is poised to expand its cloud platform and e-commerce dominance, leveraging recent funding for global scaling and deeper integrations amid AI search maturation.[2][3] Trends like agentic discovery, multimodal LLMs, and real-time personalization will amplify its edge, potentially capturing more market share from incumbents as vector tech becomes table stakes.[1][4][5]
Its influence may evolve into a foundational AI infrastructure layer, empowering developers to build human-like search at scale—transforming how brands convert shoppers, much like its early revenue proofs signal broader disruption.[1][3]
Marqo has raised $18.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $13.0M Series A in February 2024.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 1, 2024 | $13M Series A | Hemant Mohapatra | Blackbird Ventures Australia, Family Office, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed India Partners, PHD, Rain Cui, Phd, MBA, ROB Skillington, January Capital | Announced |
| Aug 1, 2023 | $5M Seed | Blackbird Ventures Australia | Family Office, PHD, Rain Cui, Phd, MBA, Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang, Michele Catasta, Creator Fund, January Capital | Announced |
Marqo has raised $18.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Marqo's investors include Hemant Mohapatra, Blackbird Ventures Australia, Family Office, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed India Partners, PhD, Rain Cui, PhD, MBA, Rob Skillington, January Capital, Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang, Michele Catasta.