Profound
Category: AI in Marketing
An AI visibility and optimization platform that helps brands track, analyze, and optimize how they appear in AI-generated answers across platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. Profound was founded in 2024. The company is led by James Cadwallader. Based in New York City, United States (offices also in San Francisco, London, Buenos Aires). Team size: 100+. Total funding raised: $155.0M. Latest round: Series C ($96.0M, Feb 2026). Key investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, NVIDIA NVentures.
- Founded
- 2024
- Headquarters
- New York City, United States (offices also in San Francisco, London, Buenos Aires)
- Team size
- 100+
- Total funding
- $155.0M
Value proposition
Enables brands to measure and influence how AI answer engines describe and recommend them, combining analytics, content generation, and autonomous execution to close the loop between insight and action.
Products and solutions
Answer Engine Insights, Agent Analytics, Conversation Explorer, Profound Agents (Workflows), Query Fanouts Analysis, Visibility Dashboard
Unique value
Pioneered the Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) / Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) category; tracks millions of real prompts through front-end user interfaces (not APIs) for authentic AI behavior; autonomous agentic workflows.
Target customer
Enterprise marketing teams, Fortune 500 brands, B2B companies, digital marketing agencies, e-commerce retailers
Industries served
Retail & E-commerce, Financial Services & Banking, B2B SaaS & Enterprise Software, Marketing Technology & Digital Advertising, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Consumer Packaged Goods, Technology & Telecommunications
Technology advantage
Proprietary Profound Index collects real conversations; three proprietary data vectors with real-time citation tracking; 'read/write' platform; state-of-the-art reasoning models leveraging billions of unique signals.
How they differentiate
Most well-funded and enterprise-focused AEO platform; proprietary Profound Index tracking real prompt volume data (not hypothetical); multi-engine coverage; autonomous agentic workflows; SOC 2 Type II certification.
Main competitors
Scrunch AI, Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, BrightEdge
Key partnerships
Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, NVIDIA NVentures, WordPress, Sanity CMS, Slack, Google Cloud Platform, Vercel, Netlify, Contentful, Amsive, Partnerize
Notable customers
Target, Walmart, Ramp, MongoDB, U.S. Bank, Figma, DocuSign, Chime, Plaid, Wayfair, Brex, LG
Major milestones
Launched August 2024 with $3.5M seed round led by Khosla Ventures, Series A ($20M) led by Kleiner Perkins in Jun 2025, Series B ($35M) led by Sequoia Capital in Aug 2025, Series C ($96M) led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in Feb 2026 (Unicorn Status), Expanded globally with London office opening in Oct 2025
Growth metrics
Achieved unicorn status ($1B valuation) in 18 months; 1800+ customers including 12% of S&P 500 companies; 100+ employees across 4 global offices.
Market positioning
Enterprise-focused category leader in Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) / Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) with unicorn status ($1B valuation), 1800+ customers, named G2 Winter 2026 AEO Leader.
Geographic focus
North America (NYC), United Kingdom (London)
Patents and IP
No registered patents publicly disclosed as of February 2026
About James Cadwallader
Serial marketing entrepreneur; previously co-founded Kyra (2017), a data-driven influencer marketing agency serving Fortune 500 brands; met co-founder Dylan Babbs at South Park Commons startup incubator; launched Profound in August 2024; views AI-driven search as 'the biggest disruption in the history of capitalism'; pioneered the Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) category
Latest news about Profound
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Official website: https://www.tryprofound.com/
