Walmart Labs (formerly named Kosmix and @WalmartLabs) became part of Walmart Global Tech, the technology and business services organization within
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
.
Venky Harinarayan
Venky Harinarayan is an Indian entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Cambrian Ventures and Kosmix. Harinarayan also co-founded Junglee Corp. and played a significant role at Amazon.com in the late 1990s. Originally from Bombay, India, Harinara ...
and
Anand Rajaraman
Anand Rajaraman is a Web and technology entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Cambrian Ventures and Kosmix. Rajaraman also co-founded former Junglee Corp. and played a significant role at Amazon.com in the late 1990s.
Personal life and education ...
founded Kosmix in 2005. In April 2011,
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
acquired Kosmix and formed @WalmartLabs, a research division, out of it.Goodbye, Kosmix. Hello, @WalmartLabs In 2016, Walmart combined Walmart Labs and its information systems division (ISD) into one team called Walmart Technology. In August 2020, Walmart Technology launched its new identity as Walmart Global Tech as part of a new technology and shared services organization within the world's largest retailer.
History
Kosmix
Harinarayan and Rajaraman were co-founders of Junglee, the first shopping
search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
which was acquired by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
in 1998. They later created Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk and started an early-stage VC fund, Cambrian Ventures, that backed several companies later acquired by
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
.
Kosmix expanded its focus from vertical to a horizontal search engine in June 2008, covering all subjects. For a key word or topic that a user enters, "Kosmix gathers content from across the Web to build a sort of multimedia encyclopedia entry on the fly. The company has built a taxonomy of nearly five million categories on a wide range of topics. The taxonomy includes millions of connections mapping the relationship among those categories."Helft, Michael "Just Don't Compare Kosmix to Google" ''The New York Times''. 14 March 2009. Retrieved on 18 March 2009.
Growth
In June 2007, Kosmix announced a partnership with
Revolution Health
Revolution Health Group was a United States-based corporation founded in July 2005 by Steve Case.
Revolution Health Group was one of three companies in the Revolution LLC group of companies.
On October 25, 2007, the company dismissed 60 employe ...
, in which Revolution Health will utilize Kosmix to enhance content searches on RevolutionHealth.com.
Truveo
Truveo is a search engine for Web video, based in San Francisco and operated by Oath Inc. Truveo was founded in 2004 by Timothy Tuttle and Adam Beguelin.Hitwise. Kosmix launched a personal news site called MeeHive in March, 2008 which is similar to
Google News
Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web.
Google rel ...
or
My Yahoo!
My Yahoo! is a start page or web portal which combines personalized Yahoo! features, content feeds and information. The site was launched in 1996 and was one of the company's most popular creations.
Applications of My Yahoo
My Yahoo’s purpose i ...
, but allows users to customize their interests to a greater degree. Meehive was shut down in October 2010. Kosmix launched tweetbeat in June 2010 as it entered the social media arena.
In October 2009, Kosmix acquired Cruxlux, an engine designed to take any two people, places, or things and tell the user how they are connected. Cruxlux was founded in 2007 by Guha Jayachandran and Curtis Spencer and was in private beta at the time of the acquisition. The terms of the deal are mostly unknown, other than that it was made in both cash and stock.
In April 2011, Kosmix announced a partnership with Ask The Doctor, in which their website AskTheDoctor.com would provide Q & A format medical content for Kosmix's website RightHealth.
Acquisition by Walmart
Kosmix was acquired by Walmart in April/May 2011 and became @WalmartLabs for a rumored amount of $300 million. In June 2012, Harinarayan and Rajaraman announced that they would be leaving the company to take some time off, with no immediate plans.
In June 2013, Walmart bought predictive intelligence startup Inkiru to add analytics capabilities. In June 2018, Walmart announced it would hire 2,000 additional employees into Walmart Labs to improve the company's online grocery shopping platform. In July 2019, it acquired health tech startup FloCare and B2B wholesale trading platform BigTrade to bolster its customer service.
Walmart Global Tech
Walmart Global Tech develops and manages the foundational technologies on which Walmart Inc.'s customer experiences are built, including cloud, data, enterprise architecture, DevOps, infrastructure and security. The tech organization powers Walmart Inc. and its business units, including Walmart U.S. Sam's Club and Walmart International. It is also an enterprise services organization that develops solutions to help 2.3 million Walmart and Sam’s Club associates work and live better. Walmart Global Tech is led b Suresh Kumar Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer and
Chief Development Officer A chief business development officer (CBDO) is a position within a company established beside the other executive positions reporting to CEO and COO. The title is used to define a high-ranking position alongside the CEO. The CBDO is expected to have ...