StartUp Beat

Kannuu offers an accurate, easy to use word completion technology for devices like MP3 players and mobile phones that enables data entry without a keyboard or number/letter pad.  The company, based in Irving, Texas, was founded in 2006 by current CTO Kevin Dinn.  StartUp Beat got the scoop on kannuu from CEO Sean-Michael Daley.

SUB: What primary need does kannuu address?

Daley: The need to be able to find exactly what you are looking for in only a matter of clicks.  No need for a keyboard.  There are large amounts of digital content and data available to us now, and kannuu empowers users with the easiest way to navigate through massive digital libraries and find precisely what is queried all in just a few clicks.  No need to know correct spelling, and it’s not frustrating T9.

SUB: How do you make money?  What is your revenue model?

Daley: Licensing the technology to online and on-device needs.

SUB: How did the idea for the service come about?

Daley: Long story short, our founder was “in the labs” at a major mobile device manufacturer looking for a more efficient way to do text-entry, and discovered—and later patented—the algorithms.

SUB: How do people use the service?

Daley: On line, on device.  Wherever there is a database and a device with four-way directional arrow keys, kannuu can be used—set-top boxes, GPS, iPhone/mobile phones, MP3 players, etc.

SUB: Who do you consider your competitor(s)?

Daley: There’s really not one, there are lots of “search/lookup” solutions out there, but none of them come close to providing the depth and breath of what kannuu offers, with such ease of use for the end-user.  I guess if I had to name one, I suppose it would be users not knowing what they are missing.  We have a saying, “People don’t know what they don’t know.”  In other words, no one has solved this look-up/finding solution until us, so people don’t know what they are missing, if they’ve never experienced the accuracy and elegance of our solutions.

SUB: How has the company been financed to this point?  Who are your investors?

Daley: We are Angel funded, currently.  However, we are gearing up to raise capital.

SUB: As a company, what have your big wins been so far (customers, partners, etc.)?

Daley: We just announced our first commercial deal with Coby Electronics, where we are powering their MP3 music player user interface and search/look-up functionality.  We recently launched our kannuu Developer Network (kDN) and we are inspiring innovators to use our SDK in their applications.  More deal announcements are coming soon.

kannuu: www.kannuu.com