30-second summary
Search layer for apps, powered by deep-linking and natural language. Raised $164M peaking in 2015, burned it on a crawler team that could never force app developers to cooperate. Apple and Google pulled the same idea into the OS with SiriKit (2016) and App Indexing (2015), wiping out the reason Quixey's middle layer had to exist. Liquidated in 2017.
The Pitch
"Type what you want, we find the app function that does it." Users would say "call my friend an Uber" and Quixey would route into the Uber app at the right intent. The company owned the indexing work for a directory of apps the phone already had, in principle obviating the home screen.
Five Causes of Death
Market
Mid-2010s app discovery was won by store rankings, not search. End users weren't looking for "an app that does X" — they were looking for a specific app by name, and they already had a home-screen shortcut for it. The demand curve for "app function search" collapsed before the tech matured.
Product
iOS's sandbox and Android's fragmentation meant that indexing the inside of an app required developer cooperation. Third-party app developers had no reason to expose their deep-link surface to a company that would then route traffic away from their icon. The supply side was structurally closed.
Team
Engineering-heavy founding team without enterprise BD muscle. A $110M Alibaba round pushed them into a China pivot — "app search for China" — which meant direct combat with Baidu and Tencent on their home turf. That was always a losing fight. Three rounds of layoffs and a CEO ouster followed.