Cuill, the stealth search startup backed by former Google, AltaVista, and IBM search experts, has completed a second round of funding to the tune of $25 million. The round was led by Madrone Capital Partners and follows on a first round of $8 million from Tugboat Ventures and Greylock Partners. From the release:

“We are pleased with the confidence of our investors,” said Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Tom Costello. “Our team is using breakthroughs in search architecture and technological advances to create a new paradigm in search, and we now have the resources to reach the next level in pure search.”

Cuill has assembled a premier team of search experts from Google, IBM, eBay, Alta Vista, Xerox PARC, the Internet Archive and Stanford University. These highly respected search veterans have a proven track record in the search industry and are focused on creating the next generation of search.

“We are thrilled to receive additional funding,” said Anna Patterson, President and co-founder. “I’m very proud of the experienced team we have recruited and the board we have assembled. Our goal is to offer a dramatically improved search experience and we look forward to sharing Cuill with everyone on the Web.”

For more about Cuill, see my The Google Challengers: 2008 Edition post from earlier this year.

Related Topics: Business Issues: General | Search Engines: Other Search Engines

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan