DM News: Ask Jeeves Files to Raise Up to $400 Million

Ask Jeeves plans a very large offering of up to $400 million, proceeds to be used for potential acquisitions, as well as the standard rigmarole of general corporate purposes. Ask Jeeves recently became the fourth "major" in the eyes of some search market watchers, as it closed a half billion dollar merger with Interactive Search Holdings, giving the combined entity a seven percent share in the search market. Perhaps more interesting for Ask Jeeves future is its possession of Teoma, a search technology that, along with Google and Yahoo, is reported to be among the top three in providing relevant results to users, according to Vividence.

While its coffers have been largely drained by recent acquisitions, Ask Jeeves still has $50 million in cash and short term assets on hand. Asking for an additional $400 million is already spawning speculation that the company may have its eyes on some of the few other search engines still holding a percent or two of marketshare. Chief among the obvious targets is Lycos, whose parent company Terra has recently been shopping around, reportedly with a price tag in the low hundreds of millions - a bargain relative to its bubble price in the billions.