They also raised $10M at that time. I assume there were conditions to that deal and/or the launch didn't really turn the trajectory around and they saw the writing on the wall.
While I admittedly also haven't been using them for quite some time, it's sad to see them shutdown. For me they were the first ones that did web search in AI chat well enough to make AI actually into a useful daily tool.
Phind was the first AI search I used as well. But they seemed to be quickly outfoxed by Perplexity. I started using Perplexity after it was recommended to me as having fewer hallucinations - now it can integrate its tools with SOTA models like Opus.
While I admittedly also haven't been using them for quite some time, it's sad to see them shutdown. For me they were the first ones that did web search in AI chat well enough to make AI actually into a useful daily tool.