Algolia Acquires Startup Funded By Google Digital News Initiative

Algolia, a search as a service company, has acquired MorphL, a startup funded by the Google Digital News Initiative, to help power its new offering supported by artificial intelligence (AI).

This suite of API-based AI and Machine Learning (ML) models enables developers, data scientists, and marketers to predict user intent, personalize online experiences, and create highly-targeted offers.

Ciprian Borodescu, CEO at MorphL, believes MorphL’s mission has been to democratize AI and empower developers and marketers who want to enhance their digital offerings with a simple plug-and-play building-block interface.

On the company’s website, Borodescu shared that in 2020 website traffic doubled, compared with 2019, and signups rose 250%.

The company launched seven new machine-learning models: Personalized Recommendations, Frequently Bought Together, Related Products, AI-Based Segmentation, Demand Prediction, Price Optimization, and Lookalike.

Some customers saw 15% revenue increase for those using one of MorphL’s machine-learning models. Some ecommerce experienced growth of up to 200% for conversion rates. Others experienced up to 45% average order-value lift.

Borodescu, along with all MorphL employees, joined Algolia as head of research and development in Romania, where the company will further develop AI capabilities,  and as AI Evangelist.

MorphL began as an open-source project. Then shortly after in the beginning of 2018, Google Digital News Initiative awarded the company a grant to develop a machine-learning platform capable of predicting user behaviors in mobile and web applications.

At the end of 2018, the European Data Incubator accepted MorphL. Then when the company teamed up with JOT Internet Media to predict user search intent. Since then the company signed on clients such as Orange, Mobexpert, and altis.

Algolia’s AI offering works to simplify the ability to understand user intent, so it is possible to personalize experiences and offers even during the first search on a company’s website.

The acquisition extends Algolia’s intelligent search APIs, with recommendations and user behavior models throughout the customer journey.

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