With consumers increasingly asking questions of ChatGPT — not Google — product discovery is changing. And the promise to give brands visibility and control over this fast-growing search channel has made Peec AI one of Europe’s hottest startups.
Just four months after its Seed round led by 20VC, the Berlin-based startup has raised a $21 million Series A led by European VC firm Singular. CEO Marius Meiners declined to disclose the valuation, but said it had tripled and was now above $100 million.
This comes after Peec AI grew its annual recurring revenue to more than $4 million in only ten months since its launch, attracting 1,300 companies and agencies to its platform.
These customers use Peec AI to monitor how their brands appear in AI-powered searches. But beyond analytics on visibility and ranking, Peec AI also tracks sentiment — and which sources shape these answers.
These insights are what make Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) possible — a way for marketing teams to optimize their brand’s presence in AI search results, similar to how SEO works for traditional search engines. With this promise, the startup says it is now adding some 300 customers a month, and its new funding will accelerate this growth while also supporting expansion plans.
Thanks to its new round, which was also backed by Antler, Combination VC, identity.vc, and S20, the startup plans to hire some 40 people in the next six months. These roles are mostly based in Berlin, where Meiners met his two cofounders in Antler’s Winter 2024 cohort: Tobias Siwonia is now Peec AI’s CTO, and Daniel Drabo is its CRO.
Expanding fast and being visible may be key to winning in an emerging category that could soon become crowded, with competitors already including New York-based Profound and Austrian startup OtterlyAI.
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To help attract more talent, the 20-person startup is currently advertising itself on large outdoor ads throughout Germany’s capital city. But beyond its Berlin plans, Meiners told TechCrunch that Peec AI also plans to open a sales-focused office in New York City in the second quarter of next year.
As more GEO-focused tools become available, and SEO dashboards add AI tracking capabilities, Peec AI hopes to differentiate itself by offering marketing teams a dashboard that expands in scope while remaining simple to use, despite the fast-changing nature of AI searches.
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