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| Type | Private (venture-backed) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
| Key people | Jeff Bonforte, CEO 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 US$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 US$20 million acquisition by Microsoft, which the company reportedly rejected.[14]
"Xobni" is the word "inbox" spelled backwards. It is pronounced Zob-nee.[15]
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? Gigaom
- ^ Xobni Blog: List of investors
- ^ TechCrunch 40: Productivity & Web Apps - Panel Video TechCrunch 40
- ^ Email Company Xobni Launches, may Steal TechCrunch Prize Venturebeat
- ^ Xobni - A New Look for Outlook MIT Technology Review
- ^ Reinventing the Inbox Newsweek
- ^ Xobni Blog: Improving performance
- ^ NY Times: If You Use Outlook E-mail, Meet Xobni The New York Times
- ^ Xobni Blog: Jeff Bonforte Joins Xobni as CEO
- ^ Gabor Cselle: Bill Gates demos Xobni
- ^ TechCrunch: Microsoft may buy Email Startup Xobni TechCrunch
- ^ Xobni FAQ
- Sean Campbell (October 8, 2008). "Interview with Gabor Cselle - VP of Engineering at Xobni". HSIB. Retrieved on July 31, 2008.
External links
- Xobni Website
- CrunchBase: Xobni Profile
- Lookeen: The successor of the famous Lookout for Outlook 2007
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