Guruji.com, backed by Sequoia Capital India, India’s first local search engine aimed at the Indian web consumer. Guruji.com is focused on providing better search results to Indian consumers, by leveraging proprietary algorithms and data in the Indian context. It has a very simple layout like google.

According to a study done by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), there are about 65 million people who use search engines in India and the current size of market for search engine advertising is $50 million. This market is expected to grow significantly over the next five years.

Anurag Dod, Co-Founder & CEO, Guruji.com said “What sets us apart is our focus on the Indian market and the Indian consumer. When an Indian consumer types in a search key word like “newspaper” the results should show him websites of the top Indian newspapers rather than other news sites which are not relevant to him. We have worked very hard to build the best local search product in the market.” he added.

Crawl Technology, used by guruji.com, is a complex computing system that crawls the web identifying Indian content using sophisticated algorithms. The technology is built on a distributed architecture that can scale with the growing needs of the users. It crawls the web, indexes the data that it gathers and provides the user with a simple keyword based interface to get to the data quickly and efficiently.

Guruji.com also launched the Indian language search. In its first phase, cover Hindi, Telugu and Kannada language search. This will help the users to get accurate search results in their language and thus will improve their search experience. It will also be launching the same service in other important languages in the coming months.

Gaurav Mishra, Co-Founder & COO, Guruji.com explains “90% of internet search queries are local in nature, and Guruji.com will deliver better search results than any other search engine in these instances. The next wave of growth for internet in India will be fuelled by the growth of vernacular content and the way it is accessed by consumers across the country and the Indian language search engine from guruji is a step in that direction”.

About Sequoia Capital India
Sequoia Capital India provides venture and growth equity capital to entrepreneurs who wish to build world-class companies. Sequoia Capital India manages three funds totaling $750mm focused on investments in India across sectors. Sequoia Capital India investments include Applabs, Bharti Telesoft, Café Coffee Day, GlobalLogic, Indiatimes, Travelguru and Shaadi. Globally, Sequoia Capital has been an early investor in such companies as Google, Yahoo, Apple, Oracle, Cisco and Youtube.