Lucid Imagination Achieves Exceptional Growth in Its First Year

San Mateo, CA (January 26, 2010)  Lucid Imagination [1], the commercial company for Apache Lucene [2] and Apache Solr [3] search technologies, today marked the first anniversary of its launch. With sales in the millions in its first year, the company has closed over 50 customers, including AT&T, Nike, Sears, Ford, Verizon, The Guardian, Elsevier, The Motley Fool, Cisco, Macy's and Zappos.

"Building our search with Lucene/Solr at Zappos has afforded us tremendous flexibility and value," said Brent Cromley, Sr. Director of Engineering at leading online apparel & footwear retailer Zappos.com Inc. "By working with Lucid Imagination, we've been able to ensure that our Lucene/Solr based-search delivers the speed, reliability and ease of use we need to keep our customers delighted -- and coming back to find more."

Adoption of Lucene/Solr continues to accelerate as organizations of all types recognize the value and opportunity offered by this fast, flexible open source search technology. Mission critical search applications in e-commerce, government, research, media, telecommunications, Web 2.0, and many more use Lucene/Solr to ensure end users can find valuable, accurate information quickly and efficiently across the enterprise. Lucid Imagination complements the strengths of this technology with a foundation of commercial-grade software and services with unmatched expertise. Its software and services help organizations optimize performance and achieve high-quality search results with their Lucene/Solr applications.

"2009 has seen the intersection of two big trends: the pent-up demand for delivering timely access to corporate information in all its forms, and the disruptive innovation of Lucene/Solr open source search," said Eric Gries, CEO of Lucid Imagination. "What we've seen at Lucid Imagination in the last year is that companies across the spectrum are tapping the power of Lucene/Solr for mission critical search applications. By providing the commercial-grade foundation enterprises rely on to make their search applications successful, Lucid Imagination provides the leverage to turn community innovation into the compelling alternative the market has been waiting for."

The growth in revenue and customer base has also been reflected in a high level of engagement with the community and marketplace. A growing user base, well into thousands of users, registered for a wide range of events and offers. The company has also sponsored Meetup groups for community members, convening frequently in North America and Europe and attracting hundreds of Meetup members. Numerous webinars showcasing the diverse uses of Lucene/Solr technologies at companies like MySpace, Comcast, AT&T Interactive and The Motley Fool also attracted hundreds of participants each. Lucid has also set up and certified a worldwide network of value-added consultants, search implementation and training partners who have helped to increase Lucene/Solr market penetration.

Lucid Imagination also released several significant software updates in 2009, including the LucidWorks Certified Distributions for Solr 1.3 and Solr 1.4, as well as for Lucene 2.4 and 2.9. Lucid also issued the industry's first free, definitive reference guide for Solr earlier this month. Offerings such as these helped the company win industry awards including KMWorld's Promise Award and EContent 100.

About Lucid Imagination

Lucid Imagination is a commercial company dedicated to Apache Lucene technology. The company provides free certified distributions, documentation, commercial-grade support, training, high-level consulting and value-added software for Lucene and Solr. Lucid Imagination's goal is to serve as a central resource for the entire Lucene community and marketplace, to make enterprise search application developers more productive. Customers include AT&T, Nike, Sears, Ford, Verizon, Cisco, The Guardian, Elsevier, Zappos, The Motley Fool, Cisco, Macy's and many other household names. Lucid Imagination is a privately held venture-funded company. The investors include Granite Ventures, Walden International and In-Q-Tel.