Gushwork, an India-founded startup, is drawing significant investor support as it helps businesses navigate and capture customers from emerging AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. The two-year-old company recently announced a $9 million seed round of funding, co-led by Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and Lightspeed, with additional participation from B Capital, Seaborne Capital, Beenext, Sparrow Capital, and 2.2 Capital.

This latest financing round values Gushwork at $33 million post-money, a substantial increase from its approximately $7.5 million valuation following a Lightspeed-led $2.1 million pre-seed round in July 2023. With this new investment, Gushwork's total funding has reached $11 million.

The funding arrives at a pivotal moment as AI companies, including OpenAI and Perplexity, are increasingly challenging traditional web search paradigms. This shift has prompted established players like Google to integrate AI-generated overviews and conversational features into their search products. Gushwork is strategically positioned to capitalize on this evolving landscape, betting that the transition will create novel opportunities for businesses to enhance their visibility in these AI-driven discovery channels through its innovative automated marketing agents.

Founded in 2023 by Nayrhit Bhattacharya and Adithya Venkatesh, Gushwork initially focused on enabling small and medium businesses to outsource workflows by combining AI and human expertise. However, a clear and growing customer demand for assistance with improving online visibility led the startup to refine its focus toward search-led marketing. Bhattacharya noted that the strong pull from customers regarding search became impossible to ignore, leading to this strategic pivot.

Gushwork's sophisticated platform leverages a network of AI agents to automatically generate and continuously update search-optimized content. It also builds backlinks, typically 10 to 20 per customer, through an extensive network of approximately 200 to 300 partner websites. Furthermore, the platform tracks inbound leads using an integrated content management system. The primary objective, as articulated by Bhattacharya, is to empower businesses to surface effectively in both conventional search results and AI-generated answers, all without the necessity of maintaining large, in-house marketing teams.

The startup has already demonstrated significant traction, having signed up over 300 paying customers, with approximately 95% of them based in the U.S. Subscriptions for Gushwork's services begin at $800 per month. Since rolling out its AI search-focused product about three months ago, Gushwork is currently operating at an annualized recurring revenue (ARR) of approximately $1.5 million. The company has ambitious targets, aiming to reach $3 million to $3.5 million ARR within the next three months, with month-over-month growth ranging between 50% and 80%.

Internal data from Gushwork reveals the growing impact of AI-driven discovery. Across its customer base, about 20% of website traffic now originates from AI-driven search and chat platforms. More significantly, these same sources account for around 40% of inbound leads. Bhattacharya highlighted that these higher-intent leads are already translating into tangible business outcomes for some clients. For instance, a professional services client reportedly closed between $200,000 and $350,000 worth of contracts after adopting the platform. Many users are experiencing meaningful pipeline growth as AI-driven discovery continues to gain momentum.

Gushwork's current customer base is concentrated among high-ticket B2B service providers, industrial distributors, and contract manufacturers, predominantly in the U.S. The average subscription value for its services is around $800 to $900 per month, translating to roughly $9,000 to $10,000 in annual contract value.

The shift towards AI-driven discovery, while still in its nascent stages, is rapidly accelerating. Buyers are increasingly utilizing tools such as generative AI chatbots and AI web browsers to research vendors and products. For example, OpenAI reported in July 2025 that ChatGPT processed approximately 2.5 billion prompts globally each day, with about 330 million originating from U.S. users. Bhattacharya confirms that this trend is fundamentally reshaping how many businesses approach their online visibility strategies.

Looking ahead, Gushwork plans to strategically deploy its new funding to expand its engineering team, enhance the accuracy of its AI models, and scale its go-to-market efforts. The startup currently has over 800 businesses on its waitlist, which it intends to begin onboarding soon. Headquartered in Delaware with an operational office in Bengaluru, India, Gushwork maintains a team of approximately 70 employees in India, supplemented by several contractors.