Ugenie, True Price Discovery Engine, Raises Its First Round

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ugenie, (www.ugenie.com), a next-generation online shopping engine focusing on true price discovery, announced today that it has raised its first venture capital funding round from BlueRun Ventures and Sierra Ventures. The $5 million investment will be used for product development and global market expansion.

Ugenie is a powerful shopping service that delivers maximum possible savings to its customers. In a single click, ugenie can find the best price for a bundle of items, including shipping, taxes, coupons and discounts. The engine uses advanced computer science and mathematics, and extensive experience in e-commerce and search to create a superior shopping experience that improves not just the price-comparison aspect but product selection, product discovery, as well as convenience. Ugenie alpha/beta users are already seeing significant savings.

“Ugenie is not just another shopping search engine. Its ability to unlock the hidden savings by taking advantage of price breaks including shipping, taxes, and any coupons available for the product or bundle of products is unique only to them,” said Mark Fernandes, Managing Director, Sierra Ventures.

“The ugenie team has the know-how and market experience to make a breakthrough in online shopping, and we are proud to support their vision,” said John Gardner, Partner, BlueRun Ventures.

Ugenie founders are all Amazon veterans. Krishna Motukuri, Founder & CEO, co-founded Amazon India. Harish Abbott, Founder & President was a Sr. Program Manager at Amazon. Bharat Vijay, CTO, founded Yahoo India and the Amazon and A9 (search) development centers.

“This investment will help ugenie bring its patented technology to the masses with a single mission to save consumers real dollars,” said Krishna Motukuri, Founder & CEO of ugenie. "In addition, BlueRun Ventures and Sierra Ventures, will bring tremendous business and global experience to help us execute on our strategic business objectives."

To try ugenie’s beta release, go to www.ugenie.com.

About ugenie

Ugenie is a next-generation online shopping engine focusing on true price discovery for single and bundle of items. Ugenie offers millions of unique new and used items in categories such as books, music, movies, and games. Our promise to our customers is "true price search" -- we will help you find the cheapest prices across the web, bottom-line prices that factor in shipping fees, taxes, coupons, and mail-in rebates. If you wish to buy single or a bundle of items, we promise we will save you a bundle. For more information, visit www.ugenie.com.

About BlueRun Ventures

Launched in 1998, BlueRun Ventures is a leading early stage venture capital fund. BlueRun Ventures' proven approach is to invest globally as a single fund in best-of-breed technologies and teams with the drive and ability to build leading global companies. BlueRun Ventures is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with offices in Helsinki, Herzelia (Israel), New Delhi, Seoul, and Shanghai, and. For more information, visit www.brv.com.

About Sierra Ventures

Sierra Ventures, founded in 1982, is a privately held venture capital firm focused on investments across all areas of the Information Technology sector from semiconductors to enterprise software. Sierra Ventures has managed eight venture capital partnerships and currently has more than $1 billion of capital under management. Some of the firm’s investments include Combinet (acquired by Cisco), StrataCom (acquired by Cisco), ConvergeNet (acquired by Dell), Quinta (acquired by Seagate), Intuit (INTU), OnLink (acquired by Siebel), Healtheon (merged with WebMD), AmeriGroup (AGP), Micromuse (MUSE), Active Software (acquired by WebMethods), Centex (acquired by WorldCom), and Interact Commerce (acquired by Sage).