Siri's artificially intelligent news anchor sister bags $6.2m

Siri's little sister Trapit, an intelligent discovery engine that pumps individually curated digital content to users, has closed a $6.2m Series A round of venture funding led by Hong Kong’s Horizon Ventures.

Trapit is the progeny of CALO (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes), the DARPA-commissioned artificial-intelligence project that also fathered cloud-based iPhone virtual assistant Siri.

Founded in 2009, and currently in public beta, Trapit is based in Palo Alto, California. The cash will be spent on research and development as well as an expansion to new platforms in early 2012 – including a push to make Trapit available via iOS applications.

“The investment will enable us to continue to grow our development team and expand into new mobile platforms," said Gary Griffiths, chief executive officer and co-founder at Trapit, in a canned statement.

Under the Trapit service, users can choose a pre-curated ‘trap’ of content or collate their own from news, blogs posts, reviews, videos etc. The trick is that the heuristic technology becomes increasingly accurate in tailoring content to a user over time.

“There is an enormous opportunity in front of us as the continued growth of content on the web outstrips traditional search and demands new technologies that enable discovery and personalization,” said Griffiths. ®