Profound Raises $96 Million In Series C Funding Round

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Profound secured $96 million in its Series C round, achieving a $1 billion valuation, which positions it as a unicorn in the AI marketing space. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with continued support from established firms like Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins, reflecting strong confidence in AI driven marketing tools.

What is Profound?

Profound, based in New York, specializes in AI visibility and content optimization, enabling brands to monitor and influence their presence in generative AI responses from models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. Founded in 2024 by James Cadwallader and Dylan Babbs, the platform addresses the migration of consumer attention from traditional search engines to AI powered “answer engines.” It provides tools for tracking brand mentions, sentiment, and performance across millions of prompts, allowing marketers to optimize visibility proactively. With fewer than 120 employees, Profound serves over 700 enterprise customers, including 10% of the Fortune 500 such as Target, Walmart, Ramp, MongoDB, U.S. Bank, and Figma. The company’s agents integrate with tools like HubSpot and Google Workspace to automate marketing tasks, emphasizing a hybrid role for “marketing engineers” who combine strategy, data, and AI automation.

Led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, this $96 million Series C round included participation from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Saga VC, South Park Commons, and Evantic. This infusion aims to enhance Profound Agents, customizable, autonomous tools that streamline campaign execution and boost marketer productivity by up to 10 times. Plans also include launching the Profound Ecosystem, featuring training via Profound University, certifications, and an agency marketplace to build a community around AI marketing.

It appears this funding strengthens Profound’s position in a competitive landscape where AI could reshape search, with up to 90% of cited sources in AI responses changing over time across models. By focusing on empirical data from over a billion user conversations, the company helps brands transition from passive SEO to active AI optimization, potentially defining new marketing standards. However, success may hinge on broader AI adoption and regulatory developments, as the platform evolves to support “marketing to superintelligence.”

Profound has emerged as a pivotal player in the intersection of AI and marketing, particularly through its focus on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), a category that extends traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) into the realm of generative AI. Established in New York in 2024 by co-founders James Cadwallader (CEO) and Dylan Babbs, the company addresses a critical challenge: as AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and others increasingly dominate consumer queries, handling over 100 million daily AI searches, brands risk invisibility if not actively optimized for these systems. Profound’s platform provides a comprehensive suite for visibility tracking, content optimization, and autonomous execution, drawing on real time data from front-end AI interactions across more than 10 engines, including Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Grok, and Meta AI. This data driven approach, backed by SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance, caters to enterprise needs with features like granular roles, SSO, and integrations with tools such as HubSpot, Google Workspace, Gamma, Parallel AI, and Vercel.

The company’s rapid ascent is evident in its customer base, which spans verticals like CPG, financial services, retail, pharma, consumer tech, and B2B tech. Over 700 enterprises rely on Profound, with notable clients including Target, Walmart, Figma, MongoDB, Charlotte Tilbury, and U.S. Bank. More than 500 customers use Profound Agents daily, autonomous tools that serve as “workers” for functions like demand generation, branding, and content creation. These agents enable marketers to collapse the time between concept and execution, integrating orchestration and automation to achieve up to 10x productivity gains. Profound’s recognition as a Top 50 AI Product in G2’s Best Software Products 2026 (ranking #34 across all B2B software) further validates its impact. Internal metrics highlight the platform’s value: it analyzes prompt volumes from millions of searches, provides insights into AI crawling and representation, and supports free trials for agents alongside educational resources like Profound University and the AEO Report.

Financially, Profound’s trajectory reflects investor enthusiasm for AI’s transformative potential in marketing. Starting with a $3.5 million seed round in August 2024, the company has secured progressive investments amid a competitive talent landscape, where it vies with giants like OpenAI and Anthropic for AI expertise. By 2025, annual revenue reached approximately $6.8 million, supported by a team that grew to around 62 members before expanding further to under 120 by early 2026. Pricing tiers start at $499/month for Lite plans, scaling to $1,499/month for Agency Growth, with enterprise customizations available.

The latest Series C round, closed at $96 million and a $1 billion valuation, marks Profound’s unicorn status and underscores the market’s bet on AI native distribution. This round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Evantic Capital, Saga VC, and South Park Commons, elevates total funding to over $155 million. It follows a pattern of aggressive capitalization: the $35 million Series B in August 2025 emphasized connecting brands to “superintelligence,” while the $20 million Series A in June 2025 focused on pioneering AEO. The seed round prioritized foundational AI optimization. This progression demonstrates a strategic build-out, from visibility insights to full stack automation.

Funding History Table

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Investor Breakdown Table

Strategically, the Series C funding is poised to accelerate Profound’s leadership in AI marketing, particularly as AI threatens traditional search paradigms. Quotes from stakeholders emphasize this: Co-founders Cadwallader and Babbs describe the journey as “a wild 18 months,” expressing excitement for building customer centric technology. Lightspeed partner Sachin Patel highlights the “massive migration” to answer engines, positioning Profound as the “system of record” for marketers. Customer testimonials, such as from Ravish Agrawal at Gamma, underscore the platform’s role in enabling AI native growth. The funding will support aggressive hiring, product enhancements like agent analytics, and ecosystem initiatives to formalize the Marketing Engineer role, a blend of marketer, data expert, and AI operator.

In the broader market context, Profound’s approach counters the volatility of AI responses, where sources can shift dramatically, necessitating ongoing management across ecosystems. This positions the company not as a replacement for SEO but as its evolution, expanding into a “way bigger” opportunity. Comparable tools in Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) lag in enterprise focus, with Profound’s white glove support and billion scale conversation data setting it apart. Future risks include dependency on AI model changes and competition, but strong backing from top tier VCs signals confidence in sustained growth. Overall, this round cements Profound’s role in redefining marketing for an AI first world, with potential for further innovations in autonomous agents and community driven education.

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