Tag Archives: Jim Safka

Jim Safka To Become CEO Of Chegg

Posted on June 1, 2009 by Amit Chowdhry

jim-safka
Jim Safka stepped down as the CEO of Ask.com in the middle of last month and will now be moving to another online company, Chegg.com.  When Safka stepped down from InterActiveCorp’s search engine company, he said that he wanted to work on something smaller and more local-based.  Chegg is an online textbook rental service that was started in 2003.

The textbooks rent for a much cheaper price than what it costs to buy it on Chegg.  The company raised about $27 million in funding so far from Gabriel Venture Partners, Maples Investments, Kleiner Perkins, and Foundation Capital.  The first round was $2.2 million and the second round was about $25 million.

Osman Rashid, Chegg’s co-founder will step down from being CEO and will take the chairman position.

[via paidContent]

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Ask.com, The Official Search Engine of NASCAR

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Amit Chowdhry

InterActiveCorp subsidiary Ask.com has signed a deal to become the official search engine for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).  Ask.com wants to push their brand in front of the second-most popular professional sport on TV.  NASCAR has about 75 million fans that purchase $3 billion in licensed products.

The financial details of the deal was not disclosed.  Jim Safka, CEO of Ask.com said that the goal of the deal is to have NASCAR fans use their search engine to look up information about NASCAR.  Ask.com will run the search engine on the NASCAR website and will also make a “NASCAR toolbar” for those users.  Ask will offer detail searches of NASCAR’s databases and the two companies will be showing display Ask.com ads at the races.

Ask.com sponsors the No. 96 Ford car driven by Bobby Labonte as part of a pact with the Hall of Fame racing.  The Ask.com Ford car will drive in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series as well.

“NASCAR fans are the most sponsor-loyal fan base in sports,” stated Ask.com spokesperson Andrea Riggs. “NASCAR fans appreciate the companies who support the sport they love and who enable the teams to keep racing.”

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