Profound, a startup that helps brands manage how they appear in AI-generated search results, said Tuesday it has raised $180 million in a Series D round that values the company at $1.8 billion, roughly double its valuation seven months ago.
The round was co-led by Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins, with existing backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and South Park Commons also participating, according to TechCrunch's report on the deal. It comes less than seven months after Profound's $96 million Series C, which first pushed the company past a $1 billion valuation in February, and brings its total funding raised since launching in 2024 to more than $335 million.
Betting on "Answer Engine" Marketing
Profound operates in a category sometimes called answer-engine optimization, or AEO — the AI-era successor to search-engine optimization. As more consumers rely on chatbots and AI-powered search tools rather than traditional search engines to research products and services, Profound's software tracks how, and how favorably, brands are described in AI-generated answers, and helps marketing teams adjust strategy in response. The company began two years ago as an analytics platform and has since expanded into market research and strategy tools, according to the company's funding announcement.
Profound said its revenue has roughly tripled over the past six months and that it now serves more than 1,000 enterprise customers, including Comcast, Estée Lauder, Walmart and Royal Bank of Canada. The rapid growth mirrors a broader surge of venture funding into startups built around generative AI, even as investors have grown more selective about which categories of AI application can sustain the valuations being assigned to them.
The raise is among the larger venture rounds of the week and adds to a run of sizable AI-adjacent funding this month, as investors continue to bet that the shift toward AI-mediated search and shopping will reshape corporate marketing budgets. Whether that shift proves durable enough to justify the pace of funding into the category remains an open question for the later-stage investors now backing Profound and its rivals.
Profound has not disclosed how it intends to spend the new capital, though companies at its stage typically use large late rounds to expand sales teams, broaden internationally and fund further product development ahead of a potential public offering. The company has not commented on any IPO timeline.
