As consumers abandon Google in favor of ChatGPT, Peec AI raises $21 million to help brands adapt

As consumers increasingly ask questions about ChatGPT — not Google — product discovery is changing. The promise of giving brands visibility and control in this fast-growing search channel has made Peec AI one of the hottest startups in Europe.

Just four months after a seed round led by 20VC, the Berlin-based startup has raised a $21 million Series A led by European venture capital firm Singular. CEO Marius Meiners declined to reveal the valuation, but said it had tripled and was now more than $100 million.

This comes after Peec AI grew its annual recurring revenue to over $4 million in just ten months since its launch, attracting 1,300 businesses and agencies to its platform.

These clients use Peec AI to monitor how their brands appear in AI-powered searches. But beyond insight and rating analytics, Peec AI also tracks sentiment — and the sources that shape those answers.

These insights are what make generative engine optimization (GEO) possible – a way for marketing teams to improve their brand presence in AI search results, similar to how SEO works for traditional search engines. With this promise, the startup says it is now adding around 300 customers per month, and its new funding will accelerate this growth while also supporting expansion plans.

With its new round, which was also backed by Antler, Combination VC, identity.vc and S20, the startup plans to hire about 40 people in the next six months. Most of these roles are based in Berlin, where Meiners met two of his co-founders at Antler’s Winter 2024 cohort: Tobias Sionia is now CTO at Peec AI, and Daniel Drapeau is CRO.

Rapid expansion and exposure could be key to winning in an emerging category that could soon become crowded, where competitors already include New York-based Profound and Austrian startup OtterlyAI.

To help attract more talent, the 20-person startup is currently advertising itself on large outdoor advertisements throughout the German capital. But in addition to its plans in Berlin, 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 to their AI tracking capabilities, Peec AI hopes to differentiate itself by offering marketing teams a dashboard that scales in scope while maintaining ease of use, despite the rapidly changing nature of AI searches.

Instead of revolving around keywords like SEO tools, the Peec AI dashboard focuses on claims about brands that want to appear well in search results. Customers can track up to 25 claims for €75 per month ($87), increasing to 100 claims for €169 per month ($196). Both plans offer free trials, unlike the enterprise offering, which starts at €424 per month ($493).

To make these insights actionable, the dashboard also suggests actions that can improve visibility and positive emotions. For example, its homepage suggests that a company that wants to be the answer to a query about “best CRM for fast-growing businesses” might want to “join the r/CRM subreddit” on Reddit.

This recommendation also relates to the “source insights” that lie at the heart of Peec AI and can guide content strategy for its users. The startup notes that mentions in tier-one media give no more visibility than articles published by less well-known publications whose titles are closer to the original question – for example, about “Top healthcare investors in Berlin.”

Companies already using its tools include Axel Springer, Chanel, n8n, ElevenLabs, TUI, and more, with AI searches gaining ground across sectors, both for B2C and B2B searches. However, users also turn to ChatGPT and the like for many other tasks and requests, which means the startup has to cut through the noise behind the scenes.

To achieve this, Peec AI has purchased raw datasets for these requests, but that’s just the beginning. ““We have to filter all of these elements to get the questions people have about brands or purchases, products and services,” Meiners said.

Despite all its simplicity on the outside, this private data pipeline may be the key to Peec AI’s success. This also serves as a reminder that the AI ​​value chain is not just about models and that the AI ​​application layer and the underlying data are becoming a key area for European startups, now including Peec AI.