London-based startup Searchable has raised €4.5 million (£4 million) in funding at a €45 million (£40 million) valuation to energy the subsequent frontier of digital advertising and marketing: visibility inside AI search platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
The spherical was led by early-stage investor Freestyle VC and comes as main UK manufacturers start shifting from incumbent US platforms to this new AI-first advertising and marketing strategy.
“AI is altering advertising and marketing sooner than Google did,” says founder Chris Donnelly, a serial entrepreneur behind Verb and Lottie. “We’re now not optimising for people. We’re optimising for the platforms that speak to people.”
Searchable’s funding is a part of a rising wave of European startups grabbing early-stage capital to construct instruments for advertising and marketing in an AI-first world. For instance:
This implies that buyers are critically backing the shift from conventional advertising and marketing instruments towards options optimised for AI engines like google, suggestion engines and automatic workflows. Searchable’s €4.5 M spherical could also be smaller than Peec AI’s Sequence A – however it nonetheless positions the startup amongst a rising group betting on AI-driven model visibility.
“The way in which shoppers search has modified drastically prior to now yr and AEO has emerged as a defining client class”, says Maria Palma, Common Accomplice at Freestyle VC lead investor within the spherical. “Whereas we’ve got seen some firms begin to innovate in AI advertising and marketing, the workforce at Searchable has the main analytics instrument however extra importantly a suggestion engine that reveals manufacturers the right way to clutch this chance.”
Based in 2025 by serial entrepreneur Chris Donnelly, Searchable presents a instrument that provides advertising and marketing groups a real-time view into how their model is being surfaced, ranked, and really helpful by LLMs. It’s a well timed proposition in a market the place AI-generated solutions are quickly changing conventional link-based search outcomes.
Searchable works by monitoring model visibility throughout conversational engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, and providing clear actions to enhance it. From rewriting content material to boosting metadata readability for LLMs, the platform basically acts as an agentic AI advertising and marketing assistant.
It integrates instantly with Google Analytics and Search Console, and permits entrepreneurs to ask questions in plain English, comparable to “Which AI fashions suggest us?” or “The place are we dropping visibility?”
The startup’s invite-only smooth launch generated six figures in recurring income inside its first 24 hours, with a number of world purchasers reportedly migrating from established US rivals.
Amongst early purchasers, outcomes reportedly embrace a 40% enhance in AI visibility and a 50% discount in handbook web optimization workload.
Donnelly is not any stranger to constructing digital firms. At 35, he has already constructed and exited two main ventures.
His first, Verb Manufacturers, started as a pupil undertaking with simply €455 (£400) and a laptop computer, ultimately turning into a luxurious digital company with purchasers like Bugatti and Jimmy Choo. He bought the enterprise in 2021 in an eight-figure personal fairness deal. He then co-founded Lottie, a HealthTech platform centered on eldercare, which scaled to a €284 million (£250 million) valuation in simply three years.
Now, with Searchable, Donnelly is tackling what he sees as the subsequent nice paradigm shift in advertising and marketing: the age of AI-driven search. The corporate was in-built simply 60 days and is positioning itself because the go-to platform for AI Search Engine Optimisation (AEO).
“It’s the brand new entrance door to the web,” says Donnelly. “Should you’re not listed, you don’t exist.”
With AI search anticipated to develop into a multi-billion-euro market by 2030, and projections suggesting €30–50 billion in new worth creation, Searchable is betting massive that manufacturers will need assistance navigating this shift – and doing it quick.
The startup’s product roadmap contains predictive modelling and automatic coaching of AI programs to take care of optimum model visibility.
Donnelly compares the second to the early Fb advert days. ““In 2012, £10 in Fb spend might return tons of as a result of nobody else was doing it,” he says. “That very same window exists now – for manufacturers who be taught to be seen to AI.”