As consumers turn increasingly to ChatGPT for answers — instead of Google — product discovery is evolving. Peec AI has emerged as a leading European startup, promising to give brands control and visibility within this rapidly expanding search channel.
Merely four months following its Seed round, spearheaded by 20VC, the Berlin-based startup has secured a $21 million Series A round, with European VC firm Singular at the helm. While CEO Marius Meiners chose not to reveal the valuation, he noted it has tripled, exceeding $100 million.
This development follows Peec AI’s growth of its annual recurring revenue to over $4 million within a mere ten months of its launch, attracting 1,300 companies and agencies to its platform.
These customers utilize Peec AI to keep tabs on their brand’s presence in AI-driven searches. Beyond analytics on ranking and visibility, Peec AI also monitors sentiment — and the sources influencing these responses.
These insights facilitate Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — a method for marketing teams to optimize their brand’s footprint in AI search outcomes, mirroring SEO for conventional search engines. The startup reports adding around 300 new customers monthly, and the new funding will fuel this growth while also aiding expansion endeavors.
Bolstered by its latest funding round, which also saw participation from Antler, Combination VC, identity.vc, and S20, the startup intends to recruit approximately 40 individuals in the coming six months. The majority of these positions will be based in Berlin, where Meiners initially connected with his two co-founders during Antler’s Winter 2024 cohort: Tobias Siwonia now serves as Peec AI’s CTO, and Daniel Drabo holds the role of CRO.
Rapid expansion and high visibility could prove crucial for success in this burgeoning sector, which may soon face increased competition, with players like New York-based Profound and Austrian startup OtterlyAI already present.
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In an effort to draw in more talent, the 20-person startup is actively advertising via large outdoor displays throughout Germany’s capital. Beyond its Berlin initiatives, Meiners informed TechCrunch that Peec AI intends to inaugurate a sales-oriented office in New York City during the second quarter of the upcoming year.
As the availability of GEO-centric tools increases, and SEO dashboards incorporate AI tracking functionalities, Peec AI aims to stand out by delivering marketing teams a dashboard that broadens in functionality while maintaining simplicity, despite the ever-evolving nature of AI searches.
Instead of focusing on keywords, as is the case with SEO tools, Peec AI’s dashboard revolves around prompts for which brands desire prominence in search results. Customers can monitor up to 25 prompts for €75 monthly ($87), upgrading to 100 prompts for €169 monthly ($196). Both plans include free trials, unlike the enterprise option, which starts at €424 per month ($493).
To ensure that these insights are actionable, the dashboard also proposes actions to boost positive sentiment and visibility. For example, the homepage might suggest that a company aiming to be the top result for “the best CRMs for fast-growing companies” should “join r/CRM subreddit discussions” on Reddit.
This recommendation also ties into the “source insights” that are fundamental to Peec AI and could shape the content strategy of its users. The startup has found that mentions in leading media sources don’t necessarily provide greater visibility than articles in less prominent publications whose headlines closely match the original query — for example, on “the best healthcare investors in Berlin.”
Among the companies already employing its tools are Axel Springer, Chanel, n8n, ElevenLabs, TUI, and others, as AI searches become more prevalent across industries, impacting both B2C and B2B searches. Nonetheless, users also utilize ChatGPT and similar platforms for numerous other tasks and inquiries, meaning the startup must filter through considerable background noise.
To accomplish this, Peec AI acquired raw datasets of these inquiries, but this is only the start. “We must filter all of this data to truly identify the questions that people are asking about brands, purchases, products, and services,” Meiners explained.
Despite its outward simplicity, this proprietary data pipeline could be crucial to Peec AI’s future success. This also highlights that the AI value chain encompasses more than just models, with the AI application layer and its underlying data becoming key areas for European startups, including Peec AI.
