Gushwork bets on AI search for customer leads — and early results are emerging

Gushwork bets on AI search for customer leads — and early results are emerging

As AI-powered search instruments reshape how companies are found on-line, India-founded startup Gushwork helps corporations seize prospects from platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — with early traction that is starting to attract investor help.

The two-year-old startup said Thursday it had 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 values Gushwork at $33 million post-money, up from about $7.5 million following its Lightspeed-led $2.1 million pre-seed in July 2023, an individual conversant in the matter told TechCrunch. The latest financing brings Gushwork’s whole funding to $11 million, the startup said.

The funding comes as AI corporations, including OpenAI and Perplexity, start to chip away at conventional internet search, prompting incumbents like Google to roll out AI-generated overviews and other conversational options across their search merchandise. Gushwork is betting this shift will create a new alternative to assist companies floor in AI-driven discovery channels utilizing its automated advertising and marketing brokers.

Founded in 2023 by Nayrhit Bhattacharya (pictured above, proper) and Adithya Venkatesh (pictured above, left), Gushwork initially targeted on serving to small and medium companies outsource workflows utilizing a mixture of AI and human experience. The startup started narrowing its focus towards search-led advertising and marketing after seeing strong customer demand for assist with bettering on-line visibility.

“When we started, we were focused on helping businesses outsource faster and outsource better,” Bhattacharya told TechCrunch in an interview, including that the pull round search from prospects turned more and more onerous to disregard.

Gushwork’s platform makes use of a network of AI brokers to mechanically generate and update search-optimized content; build backlinks — sometimes 10 to twenty per customer — via a network of roughly 200 to 300 associate web sites; and observe inbound leads via an built-in content administration system. The aim, Bhattacharya said, is to assist companies floor in each conventional search results and AI-generated solutions without relying on large in-house advertising and marketing groups.

The startup says it has signed up more than 300 paying prospects — roughly 95% of them in the U.S. — with subscriptions beginning at $800 monthly. Gushwork is at present working at about $1.5 million in annualized recurring income after rolling out its AI search-focused product round three months in the past and is focusing on $3 million to $3.5 million ARR in the next three months, Bhattacharya said, including that the startup is rising about 50% to 80% month over month.

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Across Gushwork’s customer base, about 20% of web site site visitors now comes from AI-driven search and chat platforms, however those sources account for round 40% of inbound leads, Bhattacharya said, citing the startup’s inner data.

The higher-intent leads, Bhattacharya said, are already translating into enterprise outcomes for some prospects. In one case, an expert providers shopper has closed between $200,000 and $350,000 value of contracts after adopting the platform, he said, declining to reveal the customer’s title. He added that many customers are seeing significant pipeline development as AI-driven discovery beneficial properties traction.

Gushwork’s customer base today is concentrated among high-ticket B2B service suppliers, industrial distributors, and contract producers, primarily in the U.S., Bhattacharya said. The startup’s common subscription runs about $800 to $900 monthly, or roughly $9,000 to $10,000 in annual contract worth, he added.

The shift towards AI-driven discovery is still in its early phases however is gaining momentum. Tools such as generative AI chatbots and AI internet browsers are more and more being utilized by patrons to research distributors and merchandise. OpenAI said in July 2025 that ChatGPT acquired about 2.5 billion prompts a day globally, including roughly 330 million from U.S. customers. Bhattacharya said the development is starting to reshape how some companies strategy on-line visibility.

Gushwork plans to make use of the new funding to develop its engineering team, enhance mannequin accuracy, and scale its go-to-market efforts, Bhattacharya said. He added that the startup has more than 800 companies on its waitlist that it plans to start onboarding.

The startup, headquartered in Delaware with an workplace in Bengaluru, has about 70 staff in India, together with a number of contractors.

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