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Profound, a New York-based platform specializing in AI visibility and optimization, has secured $35 million in Series B funding to advance its tools for helping brands control their presence in AI-driven search and responses. The round, led by Sequoia Capital, included continued participation from Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, Saga VC, and South Park Commons, bringing the company’s total funding to $58.5 million.
Profound provides a marketing platform designed for the AI-first internet, enabling businesses to monitor, create, and orchestrate content optimized for AI assistants like ChatGPT. Key features include:
- Answer Engine Insights: Tracks how AI describes brands and products.
- Agent Analytics: Analyzes AI crawler interactions with websites.
- Conversation Explorer: Identifies trending AI search topics.
- Content Generation Tools: Automates AI-optimized content such as comparisons, listicles, and social posts.
- Agent Orchestration: Deploys AI agents for marketing campaigns.
The platform processes over 100 million AI queries monthly and serves customers in 18 countries across six languages. Early adopters, including Ramp, US Bank, Indeed, MongoDB, DocuSign, and Chime, have reported significant gains, such as a 700% increase in AI referrals and a 25-40% lift in AI share-of-voice within 60 days. Profound also launched Profound Lite, a $499/month self-serve plan for startups and small businesses, to broaden access to AI visibility tools.
Founded by James Cadwallader (CEO) and Dylan Babbs (CTO), with alumni from AMD, Microsoft, Datadog, Uber, Bridgewater, and OpenAI, Profound addresses the shift where over 60% of consumers start product research with AI assistants, creating a “zero-click world” where AI conversations form initial brand impressions.
Funding History
Profound’s rapid growth is reflected in its accelerated funding timeline:
- Seed Round (August 2024): $3.5 million led by Khosla Ventures, Saga VC, and South Park Commons, with angels including Karim Atiyeh, Scott Belsky, and Balaji Srinivasan. This supported initial product development and team building in New York.
- Series A (June 2025): $20 million led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from NVentures (NVIDIA’s VC arm), Khosla Ventures, Saga VC, South Park Commons, and SV Angel. Angels included Guillermo Rauch (Vercel founder), Andrew Karam (AppLovin co-founder), Jordan Singer (Mainframe CEO), Jordi Hays, David Senra (Founders Podcast), and Kevin Wang (Braze CPO). The round fueled the launch of Profound Lite and expansion of engineering teams.
- Series B (August 2025): $35 million, marking a swift follow-up just two months after Series A, underscoring strong investor confidence amid surging demand for AI optimization.
This progression—from seed to Series B in under a year—highlights Profound’s momentum, with over 2,000 marketers from 500+ organizations now using the platform daily.
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Details of the Series B Round
The $35 million infusion positions Profound to scale amid the AI search boom, where ChatGPT alone has 700 million weekly users—quadrupling from last year. Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin emphasized the platform’s potential as a “command center” for businesses in the age of superintelligence, extending beyond AI SEO to comprehensive marketing orchestration.
Participating investors bring expertise in AI and scaling tech: Sequoia’s track record with transformative platforms, Kleiner Perkins’ focus on enterprise software, Khosla’s early AI bets, Saga VC’s consumer tech insights, and South Park Commons’ founder support network.
Use of Funds
The capital will primarily:
- Accelerate agentic workflow features, enabling marketers to deploy AI agents at scale.
- Expand content generation capabilities for bot-optimized assets.
- Support international growth, targeting global brands across markets and languages.
- Bolster engineering and data science teams in New York to handle billions of AI signals.
Co-founder Cadwallader noted the funds will address “insanely ambitious engineering problems,” positioning Profound as the go-to tool for marketing to superintelligence rather than humans.
Market Context and Implications
The round aligns with a pivotal shift: AI search is reshaping discovery, with platforms like ChatGPT becoming the “new front door” for brands. Traditional SEO tools fall short in this agentic era, where AI not only recommends but may soon purchase and utilize products. Profound’s focus on AI-specific optimization differentiates it from competitors like Semrush, emphasizing proactive control over passive monitoring.
Investor enthusiasm reflects broader trends—AI visibility is evolving from a niche concern to a board-level priority by 2026. Reddit’s CEO referencing Profound in Q2 earnings underscores its relevance. For brands, this means potential invisibility to billions if unoptimized, but opportunities for dominance: Bank of America captured 32% of AI banking conversations, while Ramp ranked top-5 in fintech globally within weeks using Profound.
Overall, the Series B validates Profound’s trajectory toward becoming an essential infrastructure for the agentic internet, empowering lean teams to launch AI-optimized campaigns efficiently and positioning the company for sustained leadership in a market projected to define modern marketing.
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