Peec AI raises $21M to help brands adapt as consumers ditch Google for ChatGPT

Product discovery is changing as consumers increasingly ask questions about ChatGPT rather than Google. And its promise to give brands visibility and control over this fast-growing search channel has made Peec AI one of Europe’s most popular startups.

Just four months after its 20VC-led seed round, the Berlin-based startup has raised $21 million in Series A led by European VC firm Singular. CEO Marius Meiners declined to disclose the company’s valuation, but said it has tripled and is now worth more than $100 million.

This comes after Peec AI grew annual recurring revenue to more than $4 million in just 10 months after launching and attracted 1,300 companies and agencies to its platform.

These customers use Peec AI to monitor how their brand appears in AI-powered searches. But beyond visibility and ranking analysis, Peec AI also tracks sentiment and which sources shape these answers.

These insights enable Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). This is how marketing teams optimize their brand presence in AI search results, similar to how SEO works on traditional search engines. With this commitment, the startup says it is currently adding about 300 customers per month, and the new funding will accelerate this growth while also supporting its expansion plans.

Thanks to the new round, which also received backing from Antler, Combination VC, identity.vc and S20, the startup plans to hire around 40 people over the next six months. Most of these roles are based in Berlin, where Meiners met two of Antler’s winter 2024 co-founders. Tobias Siwonia is currently Peec AI’s CTO and Daniel Drabo is its CRO.

Expanding quickly and standing out may be the key to winning in an emerging category that can quickly become crowded, with competitors such as New York-based Profound and Austrian startup OtterlyAI already present.

To attract more talent, the 20-person startup is currently promoting itself with large outdoor billboards across the German capital. However, Meiners told TechCrunch that in addition to the Berlin plans, Peec AI also has 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 AI tracking capabilities are added to SEO dashboards, Peec AI wants to differentiate by providing marketing teams with a dashboard that expands their reach while maintaining ease of use despite the fast-changing nature of AI search.

Rather than being keyword-centric like SEO tools, Peec AI’s dashboard is centered around prompts to help your brand show up better in search results. Customers can track up to 25 prompts for 75 euros ($87) per month, increasing to 100 prompts for 169 euros ($196) per month. Both plans offer free trials, with enterprise offerings starting at 424 euros ($493) per month.

To make these insights actionable, the dashboard also suggests actions that can improve visibility and positive sentiment. For example, the company’s home page suggests that companies looking to answer questions about “the best CRM for fast-growing companies” may want to “participate in the r/CRM subreddit discussion” on Reddit.

This recommendation also ties into Peec AI’s core “source insights” that can guide your content strategy. The startup observed that mentions in Tier 1 media were less well-known than articles in lesser-known publications with headlines closer to the original question, such as articles about “Berlin’s best healthcare investors.”

As AI search proliferates across sectors in both B2C and B2B search, Axel Springer, Chanel, n8n, Eleven Labs, and TUI are among the companies already using the tool. However, users rely on things like ChatGPT for many other tasks and requests, so startups need to cut through the noise behind the scenes.

To accomplish this, Peec AI purchased a raw dataset of these requests, but that’s just the beginning. “You have to filter through all of that to really understand the questions people have about your brand, your purchases, your products and services,” Meiners said.

Although simple on the outside, its unique data pipeline could be the key to Peec AI’s success. This is also a reminder that the AI ​​value chain is not just about models, but that the AI ​​application layer and underlying data are now key areas for European startups, including Peec AI.