Generative engine optimization startups: funding and exits in 2026
People increasingly find brands through AI-generated answers rather than search results. Seven startups founded since 2024 have raised $472m to help marketers respond. One is valued at $1.8bn and two have already been acquired.
By Boris Bavinck and Dealroom Next-Gen API · On 15 September, Profound raised a $180m Series D at a $1.8bn valuation, co-led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins. Seven months earlier it had raised $96m at $1bn. The company, founded in New York in 2024, sells software that tracks and improves how brands appear in answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.
Profound is the largest of a group of startups building the same kind of tool. Dealroom records seven with venture funding, all founded in 2024 or 2025. Together they have raised $472m, of which Profound accounts for $334.5m. Two have already been bought: Sitecore acquired Scrunch in June 2026 for a reported $225m, and HubSpot acquired XFunnel in October 2025 for about $30m.
The category goes by several names: generative engine optimization (GEO), answer engine optimization (AEO) and AI search visibility. The tools do three jobs.
- Optimise
- Change a brand’s content and web presence so that AI models cite it, and manage the answers they give.
- Measure
- Run prompts across models to count how often a brand is mentioned, in what position, and with what description.
- Serve
- Deliver structured, up-to-date brand content directly to AI agents and crawlers instead of the human web page.
Seven startups selling visibility in AI answers
Founded in 2024 or 2025; each has at least one venture round recorded by Dealroom. Funding, latest round, announced valuation and acquisition price are labelled separately.
Monitors and improves how brands appear in AI answers, for enterprise marketing teams$334.5mraised$1.8bnvaluation, Sep 2026Optimise
Marketing agents that manage how AI models describe a brand and its products$63mraised$43mSeries B, Apr 2026Optimise
Answer engine optimisation, now part of HubSpot Marketing Hub$1.3mraised$30macquisition, Oct 2025Measure
Analytics on how often, and how, a brand is cited across AI models and prompts$27.5mraised$19.8mSeries A, Nov 2025Measure
Runs prompts at scale to measure how models describe, rank and recommend a brand$19mraised$15mSeries A, Aug 2025Measure
Tracks brand visibility across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity for brands and agencies$7.9mraised$6.6mSeed, Jul 2026Serve
Serves brand content directly to AI agents and fixes gaps and errors in what they read$19mraised$225macquisition, reported · Jun 2026The funding sits mostly in one company
Profound has raised five rounds in 25 months: a $3.5m seed in August 2024, a $20m Series A in June 2025, a $35m Series B in August 2025, the $96m Series C in February 2026 and the $180m Series D this month. Its total of $334.5m is 71% of everything the seven companies have raised.
The next largest are smaller by an order of magnitude. Bluefish, also in New York, raised a $43m Series B in April 2026 co-led by Threshold Ventures and NEA, taking its Dealroom total to $63m. Peec AI in Berlin raised a $19.8m Series A in November 2025 led by Singular, ten months after founding. Evertune raised a $15m Series A led by Felicis in August 2025. Promptwatch in Amsterdam raised a $6.6m seed in July 2026 led by seed + speed. Round sizes are Dealroom’s USD values; the announced figures are in the research notes.
Profound: five rounds in 25 months, from a $3.5m seed to $180m
Round size in USD. The $1bn and $1.8bn valuations were announced by the company; earlier rounds carried no announced valuation.
View round data
| Round | Date | Amount | Announced valuation | Investors recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | Aug 2024 | $3.5m | — | Max Altman, Thomson Nguyen, Keith Rabois, Ben Braverman, Balaji Srinivasan, South Park Commons |
| Series A | Jun 2025 | $20m | — | Jordan Singer, Andrew Karam, South Park Commons, Kevin Wang., NVentures, Saga, SV Angel, Jordi Hays, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, Karim Atiyeh, Guillermo Rauch, David Senra |
| Series B | Aug 2025 | $35m | — | Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Saga, Khosla Ventures, South Park Commons |
| Series C | Feb 2026 | $96m | $1bn | Saga, Evantic Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, South Park Commons |
| Series D | Sep 2026 | $180m | $1.8bn | Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia |
Valuations shown are company-announced. Dealroom also records estimated valuations for the seed, Series A and Series B rounds; they are estimates and are not charted.
Incumbents are buying
Sitecore, a digital-experience platform, acquired Scrunch in June 2026. Sitecore did not disclose the price; Bloomberg reported about $225m. Scrunch was founded in September 2024 and had raised $19m: a $4m seed led by Mayfield in March 2025 and a $15m Series A from Homebrew, Decibel Partners and Mayfield in July 2025. HubSpot acquired XFunnel, an Israeli answer engine optimisation startup, in October 2025 for approximately $30m in cash, according to HubSpot’s quarterly filing. HubSpot described the company as ten months old.
The largest deal in the wider market was Adobe’s $1.9bn acquisition of Semrush, announced in November 2025 and completed in April 2026. Semrush is an SEO incumbent that added an AI visibility toolkit; Ahrefs and Similarweb sell similar features. Those companies are not in the watchlist because they were not founded for this market. Acquisition prices are not venture funding and are shown separately throughout.
Two acquisitions within two years of founding
Venture rounds in blue; acquisition consideration in purple. Sitecore did not disclose a price for Scrunch; $225m is Bloomberg’s reported figure. HubSpot’s $30m for XFunnel is from its Q3 2025 10-Q.
- $4mSeed · MayfieldMar 2025
- $15mSeries A · Homebrew, Decibel, MayfieldJul 2025
- $225mAcquired by Sitecore · reportedJun 2026
- $1.3mSeedFeb 2025
- $30mAcquired by HubSpot · cash, per 10-QOct 2025
Founding dates. Dealroom records Scrunch as founded in September 2024. HubSpot described XFunnel as ten months old at acquisition; Dealroom records its founding year as 2024.
Hiring adds another view of momentum
Profound has 387 employees, up 205% over one year. Dealroom’s growth rates imply that Peec AI grew from about 13 people to 102, Bluefish from 55 to 114, Scrunch from 4 to 82 before its acquisition and Evertune from 27 to 47. These are estimates, and a fast percentage from a small base does not imply a large business.
What to watch
The oldest company in this group was founded in 2024, and the category has already produced a $1.8bn valuation, two acquisitions and a $1.9bn incumbent deal. The open questions are about durability. Semrush, Ahrefs and Similarweb sell the same measurement to existing customers; Adobe now owns one of them. OpenAI, Google and Perplexity control the answers being measured and could publish their own brand data or advertising products. Profound’s customer count, more than 1,000 enterprise brands according to the company, is the number that will show whether the tools become a budget line for marketing teams.
Employee growth at three AI search startups
Dealroom estimated employee counts and one-year growth, September 2026.
Research notes, definitions and other companies in the space
The seven-company selection is editorial, not a ranking and not the whole category. Selection rule: the company’s core product is brand visibility or optimisation in AI-generated answers, it was founded in 2024 or later, and Dealroom records at least one venture round. Funding totals are Dealroom’s USD values as of 2026-09-18. Employee counts are Dealroom estimates.
View Dealroom values against company announcements
| Company | Dealroom record | Company or press figure |
|---|---|---|
| Profound | $180m Series D, $1.8bn valuation; $334.5m total | $180m at $1.8bn; “over $335m to date” (company, 15 Sep 2026) |
| Bluefish | $43m Series B; $63m total | $43m Series B; $68m total including pre-seed (company, 14 Apr 2026) |
| Peec AI | $19.8m Series A; $27.5m total | $21m Series A (company, Nov 2025); Dealroom converts from euros |
| Evertune | $15m Series A; $19m total | $15m Series A (company, 12 Aug 2025) |
| Promptwatch | $6.6m seed; $7.9m total | €6m seed (company, Jul 2026) |
| Scrunch | $225m acquisition, June 2026 | Price not disclosed by Sitecore; $225m reported by Bloomberg |
| XFunnel | $30m acquisition, October 2025 | Approximately $30m cash (HubSpot Q3 2025 10-Q) |
Not included. AthenaHQ (San Francisco, Y Combinator) fits the product definition but Dealroom records only a $0.1m round against a $2.2m seed reported by the company; it is excluded until the record is reconciled. Otterly.AI, Goodie, Gauge, Rankshift, Trakkr, Knowatoa, Cited and Superlines build similar tools and have no venture round recorded by Dealroom. Semrush, Ahrefs and Similarweb are SEO incumbents adding AI visibility features. daydream is an agency. Genspark appears in Dealroom’s Search Engine Optimization sector but is an AI search engine, not a brand tool.
Peec AI valuation. Press reports in May 2026 described talks to raise at a $200m valuation. Dealroom has no 2026 round on record and none is claimed here.
Category totals. No Dealroom tag maps cleanly to this category; the $472m figure is the sum of the seven companies’ recorded funding, not a market total.