As AI-powered search engines change the way businesses are discovered online, Indian startup Gushwork is helping companies acquire customers from platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity – with early traction starting to gain investor backing.
The two-year-old startup said Thursday it 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 after cash-out, up from about $7.5 million after its $2.1 million pre-pick led by Lightspeed in July 2023, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The latest funding brings Gushwork’s total funding to $11 million, the startup said.
The funding comes as AI companies, including OpenAI and Perplexity, begin to move away from traditional web search, forcing incumbents like Google to introduce AI-generated insights and other conversational features into their search products. Gushwork is betting that this shift will create a new opportunity to help businesses appear in AI-driven discovery channels with their automated marketing agents.
Founded in 2023 by Nayrhit Bhattacharya (pictured above, right) and Adithya Venkatesh (pictured above left), Gushwork initially focused on helping SMEs outsource workflows using a combination of AI and human expertise. The startup began narrowing its focus on search-driven marketing after seeing strong customer demand for help improving online visibility.
“When we started, our focus was on helping businesses outsource faster and better,” Bhattacharya told TechCrunch, adding that the push around customer search is getting harder to ignore.
The Gushwork platform uses a network of AI agents to automatically generate and update search-optimized content, generate backlinks—typically 10 to 20 per customer—through a network of roughly 200 to 300 partner sites, and track incoming leads through an integrated content management system. The goal, Bhattacharya said, is to help businesses appear in both traditional search results and AI-generated answers without relying on large in-house marketing teams.
The startup says it has signed up more than 300 paying customers — roughly 95% of them in the U.S. — with subscriptions starting at $800 a month. Gushwork is currently doing about $1.5 million in annual recurring revenue after launching its AI-focused product about three months ago and is targeting $3 million to $3.5 million in ARR in the next three months, Bhattacharya said, adding that the startup is growing 50% to 80% month-on-month.
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 9, 2026
Across Gushwork’s customer base, about 20% of website traffic now comes from AI-powered search and chat platforms, but those sources account for about 40% of inbound leads, Bhattacharya said, citing the startup’s internal data.
Bhattacharya said higher intent leads are already translating into business results for some customers. In one case, a professional services client landed contracts worth between $200,000 and $350,000 after adopting the platform, he said, declining to disclose the customer’s name. He added that many users are seeing meaningful pipeline growth as AI-driven discovery gains momentum.
Gushwork’s customer base today is concentrated among high-priced B2B service providers, industrial distributors and contract manufacturers, primarily in the US, Bhattacharya said. The startup’s average subscription is around $800 to $900 per month, or roughly $9,000 to $10,000 in annual contract value, he added.
The move toward AI-driven discovery is still in its early stages, but it’s gaining momentum. Tools like generative AI chatbots and AI web browsers are increasingly used by buyers to research sellers and products. OpenAI reported in July 2025 that ChatGPT received 2.5 billion challenges per day globally, including about 330 million from US users. Bhattacharya said this trend is starting to reshape the way some businesses 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 a waiting list of more than 800 businesses that it plans to start registering.
The Delaware-based startup with an office in Bengaluru has about 70 employees in India along with several suppliers.