What Lilo does

Lilo is a French privacy-focused metasearch engine founded in 2015 and headquartered in Paris, built around a single product idea: converting everyday web search into charitable funding. End users search the web through search.lilo.org (or the Firefox extension, iOS/Android apps, or enterprise deployment at entreprises.lilo.org), accumulate 'water drops' (gouttes d'eau) per query, and allocate those drops to a curated slate of more than 15 French non-profits including Sea Shepherd France, La SPA, Médecins du Monde, WWF France, and Terre de Liens. Lilo's stated technology is a privacy-respecting metasearch layer; it does not operate its own web index and historically relied on upstream search APIs. A second monetization surface, Lilo Solidarity Purchases (shopping.lilo.org), extends the same drops-funded mechanism into affiliate e-commerce, while a third, the 'Agir rend heureux' podcast and Colibris-movement partnership, supports content and community around the solidarity narrative.

The business model is advertising- and affiliate-driven, not user-paid. Revenue is generated by search ads served alongside results and by partner commerce flows, and a programmed share is donated to the charities users select; cumulative donations exceed €5M since the company's founding. The user-facing product is free; enterprise pricing is not publicly disclosed. The company describes its served segments as privacy-conscious individual users (primary), non-profit/charitable organizations (primary, as donation recipients), and enterprises adopting the platform for CSR-driven default-search deployments (secondary).

Lilo has been wholly owned and operated by Qwant (QWANT, SAS, Paris n° 532 867 256) since its May 2025 acquisition, sharing Qwant's headquarters at 42 Avenue de la Porte de Clichy, 75017 Paris. The acquisition is contextualized by Qwant's loss of Microsoft Bing API access in August 2025 and its broader Staan partnership with Ecosia to construct a European search index. Within the Qwant group, Lilo functions as the solidarity-branded consumer and enterprise metasearch product, with reported staffing of 1–10 dedicated employees and no public revenue figures.

Name

Lilo

Legal name

QWANT

Website

https://lilo.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Lilo is a French privacy-focused metasearch engine that converts user search activity into donations for non-profits via a water-drop loyalty system. Acquired by Qwant in 2025, it serves privacy-conscious consumers and has distributed over €5M to French solidarity projects since 2015.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Charitable Search Engine

NAICS

Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (51929)

SIC

Services-Advertising (7310)

akta.pro primary industry

Q&A and Knowledge Discovery Platforms (BPAMAAAF)

akta.pro secondary industry

Digital Rights, Privacy & Free Expression Advocacy (BPAGAFAL)

Keywords

• Charitable search engine
• Metasearch platform
• Privacy-focused search
• Solidarity funding platform
• Search advertising service

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Search Advertising Revenue: Lilo generates revenue through search advertising. The revenue model operates on a donation mechanism where advertising revenue is distributed to users' chosen charitable projects, effectively using the water drop system as a vehicle for directing funds to solidarity causes.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Lilo is a French charitable metasearch engine that lets users search the web for free while funding nonprofit and solidarity projects. Each search generates advertising revenue, a portion of which is converted into virtual "water droplets" (gouttes d'eau) that users can allocate to charitable causes of their choice. Since launch, the platform has directed more than €5 million to solidarity projects through this mechanism.

Product overview

Lilo is a French charitable metasearch engine that operates as a single unified product with several integrated modules. The core offering is the Lilo Search Engine, which allows users to perform web searches while earning 'water droplets' through a loyalty system. These water droplets can be distributed to selected charitable projects from a portfolio of solidarity causes. The product ecosystem includes the Lilo Solidarity Purchases shopping module, Lilo for Business (enterprise version), a mobile app for iOS and Android, and the 'Agir rend heureux' podcast. The company was acquired by Qwant in May 2025 as part of Qwant's strategy to build technological independence after Microsoft cut off Bing API access. Lilo has donated over 5 million euros to solidarity projects since its creation, with causes including animal welfare (32%), societal issues (28%), health (15%), environmental (15%), youth (9%), and media (1%).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Lilo Search Engine Free, privacy-focused metasearch engine for individual internet users. Each query displays search results and earns advertising revenue that is partly redistributed to solidarity projects chosen by the user.
• Lilo for Business

Quantifiable outcome

• Over €5 million donated to solidarity projects since creation
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers16 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• QwantcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 May 2025Qwant, the French search engine company, acquired Lilo (the metasearch engine) in May 2025 as part of its strategy to address technological dependence and rebuild after Microsoft cut off Bing API access in August 2025. This acquisition integrated Lilo's capabilities into Qwant's operations.
• EcosiacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerQwant partnered with German search engine Ecosia to build a European search index called Staan. This partnership aims to create a European alternative to reduce dependence on American search technology providers.
• Source MobileminorGTM or Marketing PartnerSource Mobile is promoted on Lilo's platform as the first responsible and solidarity mobile plan (€10/80GB), offering users additional ways to earn water drops for charitable causes.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Ecosia: Ecosia is the closest direct competitor: a privacy-focused, values-driven search engine that donates the bulk of its surplus to charitable causes (tree-planting). Like Lilo, it monetizes through search advertising and uses impact as its primary acquisition and retention mechanism. Qwant also recently partnered with Ecosia to build Staan.
• DuckDuckGo: DuckDuckGo is a leading privacy-first search engine and browser provider. It directly overlaps with Lilo on the privacy-respecting search value proposition, browser extension distribution, and reliance on third-party search indexes (Bing, Apple Maps) for results.
• Brave Search: Brave Search is a privacy-oriented index and engine operated by Brave Software. It competes with Lilo on privacy positioning and increasingly on independent indexing, and offers a paid premium tier — directly comparable to Lilo's enterprise/paid-adjacent offerings.
• Startpage: Startpage is a Dutch privacy search engine delivering Google results without tracking. It is comparable to Lilo on the no-tracking, European-privacy search proposition and the reliance on aggregated upstream indexes.
• Qwant: Qwant is Lilo's French parent company and a direct peer — a privacy-focused search engine headquartered in Paris serving the same French/European audience. Acquisition of Lilo creates operational overlap in metasearch technology and corporate defaults.
• Tab for a Cause: Tab for a Cause turns everyday browsing activity (browser tabs) into charitable donations. It mirrors Lilo's "everyday-action-to-charity" product mechanic, targeting a similar privacy-conscious, cause-driven user with a different distribution surface.
• GoodSearch: GoodSearch donates a portion of search-driven ad revenue to user-selected charities. It is the most direct comparable US-based precedent to Lilo's water-drop model, with similar mechanics (search → donation) and similar niche scale.

Emerging players

• Mojeek: Mojeek is an independent crawler-based search engine with no tracking, comparable to Lilo on privacy and on the ambition to build an independent index; smaller scale and UK-based, so impact is overlapping but geography partially distinct.
• Kagi: Kagi is a paid, privacy-first alternative search engine with independent ranking. It overlaps with Lilo on privacy and independent search aspiration, and represents a competing paid/enterprise monetization model for users willing to pay for ad-free search.

Broad incumbents

• Google Search: Google is the dominant general-purpose search engine from which Lilo's metasearch results and competing alternative-search positioning are defined. Relevant as the incumbent Lilo positions against in both consumer default and enterprise procurement.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/uselilo
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/lilo-search-engine

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Lilo