Exa
by Exa Labs, Inc.
Exa is an AI-focused web search engine and API for developers and AI agents. It supports semantic and keyword search, webpage content retrieval, similarity search, and research workflows over web data.
Why Abandoned
Exa’s official website and documentation currently present its search, contents, research, and related developer APIs as available products.
💵 Pricing & access
- Pricing model
- Not documented
- Starting at
- Not documented
- Official site
- Visit Exa →
🩺 Health Signals
- HTTP Status
- 200
- Response
- —
- SSL
- —
- Confidence
- 96%
- Domain expires
- —
- Last content change
- —
- Last tweet
- —
- API status
- —
📅 Timeline
Company founded as Metaphor
Will Bryk and Jeffrey Wang founded the company under the name Metaphor to build a search engine using language-model-based representations. The precise public launch day is not established.
Metaphor announces $5.3 million seed round
The company announced a $5.3 million seed financing led by First Round Capital, with participation from Amplify Partners and others.
Metaphor becomes Exa
The company rebranded from Metaphor to Exa, retaining its focus on AI-native web search and search infrastructure.
Exa announces $17 million Series A
Exa announced a $17 million Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from NVIDIA’s venture arm NVentures and Y Combinator.
🔄 Alternatives to Exa
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OpenAI API
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Perplexity AI
🟢ActiveAI-powered answer engine that provides cited, real-time answers to complex questions.
You.com
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🪦 Other dead Search tools
Waldo
🟡Acquired / MergedWaldo was a research search platform for finding and extracting information from online sources. It provided source-backed answers and tools for organizing research, with a focus on professional knowledge work.
Scite
🟡Acquired / MergedScite is a research discovery and citation-analysis platform that uses machine learning to classify citation contexts as supporting, contrasting, or mentioning a claim. It also offers literature search and an AI research assistant.
Neeva
🔴Shutdown / DeadAd-free, AI-powered search engine founded by ex-Google exec that aimed to provide unbiased search results.
Casetext
🟡Acquired / MergedCasetext launched CoCounsel in March 2023, a GPT-4-powered legal assistant for case analysis, contract review, and deposition prep. The product gained traction with AmLaw 100 firms and Thomson Reuters announced a $650M cash acquisition in June 2023, closing in August. CoCounsel was rebranded as a Thomson Reuters product line and integrated with Westlaw. The standalone Casetext site is gone.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
What is Exa AI search?
Exa is a web search engine and API designed for software developers and AI agents. It can find pages by meaning or keywords and return webpage contents for downstream applications.
How does the Exa API work?
Developers submit a query and configure search options through Exa’s API or SDKs. Exa returns matching web results and can also retrieve cleaned page content, find similar pages, or support multi-step research workflows.
Is Exa the same company as Metaphor?
Yes. The search company originally operated as Metaphor and changed its name to Exa in February 2024.
What can developers build with Exa?
Common uses include retrieval-augmented generation, agent web research, answer engines, company or people discovery, content monitoring, and other applications that need structured access to current web information.
Does Exa offer a free plan or API credits?
Exa publishes current access and pricing details on its website and dashboard. Because plan limits and introductory credits can change, users should consult Exa’s pricing page before implementation.