Splore

Semantic search before ChatGPT

From July to October 2022 at Menyala, we built and tested a live semantic-search MVP with a small contracted team. The starting point was transformer embeddings and accessible consumer information, including gaming data. Real users judged retrieval relevance on their own queries. This preceded Splore’s formal kickoff in November 2022.

The early product gave us a way to test relevance before taking on harder unstructured material. The work moved towards enterprise financial services and narrowed to private markets, where useful information was often outside a public search index. It was the access problem I had encountered at Dragon Wealth, now at institutional scale.

In 2023–2024, we built research agents on a custom harness for source-cited portfolio research and post-deal compliance. The engineering question expanded from finding relevant material to checking whether the answer stayed faithful to it. In 2024, embedding work included fine-tuning open models from the Gemma 2 and BGE families.

The product served institutional asset managers and a private-equity firm. Splore obtained ISO 27001 certification and SOC 2 attestation. I led functional heads for technology, product, AI/ML and MLOps, and sales as the product and commercial work developed.

I led Splore through its acquisition by Model ML. Customers, product, IP and part of the team carried forward. The durable principle for me is that a reader should be able to follow an answer back to the material supporting it.

Evidence and outcomes

Splore became Menyala’s first exit. The linked speaking appearance records my public work during that period.

Work