AEO startup Profound raises $180M Series D at $1.8B valuation

Profound, which builds marketing software to help brands appear in AI search results, said Tuesday it has raised a $180 million Series D at a $1.8 billion valuation — less than seven months after raising a $96 million Series C. Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins led the new round, with existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, and South Park Commons also participating.

Launched two years ago, Profound started as an analytics platform before expanding into helping companies research and build marketing strategies, giving businesses a way to understand how AI helps consumers discover their brands. The company is part of a wave of startups in the GEO/AEO space — generative engine optimization and answer engine optimization, respectively — where companies look for ways to surface their products inside the AI systems customers increasingly use for search.

Profound says its revenue has grown 3x in the past six months, and it now has more than 1,000 enterprise customers, including Comcast, The Estée Lauder Companies, and Walmart.

Why it matters

The pace of Profound’s back-to-back raises — two rounds in under seven months at nearly a 19x jump in valuation — signals investors see AI-search visibility as an increasingly urgent budget line for brands, not a niche experiment.