Opzi
DefunctYC S10San Francisco, US · 2 employees · 9 known investors
Opzi built a knowledge management platform that enabled employees within organizations to ask and answer questions internally, creating a shared repository of business information.
Also known as Opzi
Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (S10)
Investors · 9
Also in the syndicate · 6
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Opzi was an enterprise question-and-answer platform, described in press coverage at the time as "a Quora for the enterprise." It provided a white-label Q&A site that an organization could run internally so employees could ask and answer questions about business processes, creating a centralized, searchable repository of company knowledge. Users signed in with a corporate email address and could search by keyword, ask questions (including anonymously), follow questions for updates, and read or post answers.
Unlike a wiki, all content on the platform was organized around individual questions. Because most companies relied on email as their primary communication channel, questions and answers could also be distributed and answered over email. The company was working on functionality to route questions to users likely to have relevant expertise. Example use cases cited included an engineering firm using the platform to sort through commands and instructions.
Founding story
Founder Euwyn Poon graduated from Cornell University at 18 and received a J.D. from Cornell Law School in 2007, then practiced law for about two years. As a law-firm associate he found it difficult to sort through knowledge and instructions shared online by fellow associates, and concluded that an internal Q&A site for business information could close that gap and improve organizational efficiency. He was 25 at the time of the company's launch.
Business model
Opzi sold its Q&A platform to organizations on a per-seat licensing model, positioning it as a white-label internal knowledge base that any company could deploy for its own employees.
Per-seat licensing fees charged to customer organizations.
Traction
Sources report only that the company was incubated at Y Combinator, raised roughly $1 million from angel investors while in stealth, and reached the final seven of the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield in 2010. No customer or usage figures are disclosed.
Latest developments
TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield profile for Opzi lists its operating status as Closed, with highlights dated January 1, 2025, and total money raised of $1 million. No later company activity appears in the sources.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Opzi entered a workplace-information market that included email, Yammer and Salesforce Chatter for collaboration and Quora for consumer Q&A, positioning itself as a knowledge-base layer on top of a company that could integrate with other information silos. Investor questions at launch focused on achieving sufficient participation density in small internal networks and on enterprise concerns about hosting classified information off-premises.
Company statements at launch distinguished Opzi from Quora (a consumer Q&A network) by focusing on a centralized knowledge base inside a single business, and from Yammer, which was characterized as building an enterprise social network rather than a knowledge base. Opzi also contrasted its question-centric organization with wiki-style documentation, and aimed for consumer-grade software usability in an enterprise product.
Technology
A hosted, white-label Q&A web application with corporate-email sign-in, keyword search, anonymous posting, question following, email-based distribution and answering, and planned routing of questions to likely subject-matter experts.
Go-to-market
Opzi launched publicly on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in September 2010, which the founder described as the company's method of getting the word out, and expected organic, bottom-up adoption within companies — the product was said to be usable by as few as two people at an organization.
Businesses and other organizations seeking an internal knowledge repository for their employees; cited examples include professional-services firms such as law firms and engineering firms.
Geography
Reported as based in Palo Alto, California at the time of its 2010 launch; the company presented at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.
History
Founded in 2010 and incubated at Y Combinator, Opzi operated in stealth from Palo Alto before disclosing a first financing round of nearly $1 million in late September 2010. It debuted publicly at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco on September 27, 2010, competed in the Startup Battlefield and was named among the final seven companies. TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield company profile subsequently lists the company's operating status as Closed.
Risks & controversies
Judges at the Disrupt launch raised concerns about whether a small internal user base could generate enough participation to make the Q&A network useful, and about enterprises' reluctance to store classified information on external servers. TechCrunch's profile later lists the company as closed.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 4
launches, deals, and filingsTechCrunch's Startup Battlefield company profile lists Opzi's operating status as Closed (profile highlights as of Jan 1, 2025).
TechCrunch coverage lists Opzi among the final seven companies competing in the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt.
Opzi publicly launched its white-label internal Q&A platform for businesses on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, presenting to a judging panel including Chi-Hua Chien, Keith Rabois, Sandya Venkatachalam and Lior Zorea.
While still in stealth, Palo Alto-based Y Combinator startup Opzi closed a first financing round of nearly $1 million from SV Angel, First Round Capital, Naval Ravikant, SoftTech VC (Jeff Clavier), Hadi Partovi, Ali Partovi, Paul Buchheit, Fritz Lanman and Raymond Tonsing.
$1M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Opzi | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Opzi do?
- Opzi was a Y Combinator-backed enterprise Q&A platform — a "Quora for the enterprise" — that is now listed as closed.
- Who founded Opzi?
- Opzi was founded by Euwyn Poon, Benjamin Preston, Nathan Speller.
- Who are Opzi's investors?
- Opzi's investors include Y Combinator, First Round Capital, SV Angel.
- Where is Opzi headquartered?
- Opzi is headquartered in San Francisco, US.