Gushwork is investing in AI search for customer leads and is seeing early results.

As AI-powered search tools change the way businesses are discovered online, India-founded startup Gushwork, which is helping businesses acquire customers on platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, has started receiving initial investor backing.

The two-year-old startup said Thursday it has raised $9 million in a seed round led by Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and Lightspeed, with participation from B Capital, Seaborne Capital, Beenext, Sparrow Capital and 2.2 Capital. The round valued Gushwork at $33 million post-mortem. This is an increase from approximately $7.5 million following a $2.1 million pre-seed led by Lightspeed in July 2023. A person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The funding brings Gushwork’s total funding to $11 million, the startup said.

The funding comes as AI companies including OpenAI and Perplexity begin to chip away at traditional web search, prompting incumbents like Google to roll out AI-generated overviews and other conversational features across their search products. Gushwork is confident that this change will create new opportunities for businesses to gain exposure on AI-driven search channels using automated marketing agents.

Founded in 2023 by Nayrhit Bhattacharya (right photo above) and Adithya Venkatesh (left photo above), Gushwork initially focused on helping small and medium-sized businesses outsource their workflows by blending AI and human expertise. The startup began narrowing its focus to search-centric marketing after seeing strong customer demand for increased online visibility.

“When we started, our focus was on helping companies outsource faster and outsource better,” Bhattacharya told TechCrunch in an interview, adding that it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the search needs of customers.

Gushwork’s platform uses a network of AI agents to automatically create and update search-optimized content. We build backlinks (typically 10-20 per customer) through a network of approximately 200-300 partner websites. Track inbound leads through an integrated content management system. The goal, according to Bhattacharya, is to help businesses gain exposure in both traditional search results and AI-generated answers without having to rely on large in-house marketing teams.

The startup said it has signed up more than 300 paying customers, about 95% of them in the U.S., with subscriptions starting at $800 per month. Since launching its AI search-focused product about three months ago, Gushwork is currently generating approximately $1.5 million in annual recurring revenue and is targeting ARR of $3 million to $3.5 million over the next three months, Bhattacharya said. He added that the startup is growing at around 50% to 80% every month.

Across Gushwork’s customer base, about 20% of website traffic currently comes from AI-powered search and chat platforms, but these sources account for about 40% of inbound leads, Bhattacharya said, citing the startup’s internal data.

Bhattacharya said higher-intent leads are already converting into business outcomes for some customers. In some cases, professional services clients have signed contracts worth between $200,000 and $350,000 after adopting the platform, he said, declining to disclose the clients’ names. He added that as AI-based discovery gains traction, many users are seeing meaningful pipeline growth.

Currently, Gushwork’s customer base is primarily focused on high-value B2B service providers, industrial distributors and contract manufacturers in the United States, Bhattacharya said. He added that the average subscription fee for a startup is $800 to $900 per month, or about $9,000 to $10,000 for an annual contract.

The shift to AI-based discovery is still in its infancy, but is gaining momentum. Buyers are increasingly using tools such as generative AI chatbots and AI web browsers to research suppliers and products. OpenAI said that in July 2025, ChatGPT received about 2.5 billion messages per day globally, including about 330 million from users in the United States. Bhattacharya said this trend is starting to change the way some companies approach online visibility.

Gushwork plans to use the new funding to expand its engineering team, improve model accuracy and expand its go-to-market efforts, Bhattacharya said. He added that the startup has more than 800 companies on its waiting list that it plans to start onboarding.

Headquartered in Delaware with an office in Bengaluru, the startup has about 70 employees and several contractors in India.