Neeva, a search engine that offered users an advert- and tracker-free experience for a monthly fee, has announced that it will close on 2 June. The company, founded by a former Google ad executive, said it failed to convince enough users to switch from the dominant players in the search market.

Neeva was launched in October 2020 by Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan, who wanted to create a more privacy-friendly and user-centric alternative to Google and other search engines. Neeva charged users $4.95 (£3.60) a month and promised not to collect or sell their data or show them any ads.

Neeva also introduced artificial-intelligence-generated answers to some queries, using large language models (LLMs) that can understand and generate natural language. The company said it had developed its own LLM technology that was faster and cheaper than existing solutions.

However, in a blog post, the founders admitted that they faced “entrenched organisations with endless resources” and “friction” that prevented users from changing their default search settings. They also said that the economic environment had changed since their launch and that users were more willing to pay for a better experience than to try a new search engine.

The company said it would refund users for the unused portion of their subscriptions and explore other business opportunities in the AI field, especially in applying LLMs to enterprise settings. The company said it had about 50 employees and had raised $77.5m (£68m) from investors.