AI NewsGushwork 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

8:30 AM IST · February 26, 2026

As AI-powered search tools reshape how businesses are discovered online, India-founded startupGushworkis helping companies capture customers from platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — with early traction that is beginning to draw investor support. 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 itsLightspeed-led $2.1 million pre-seedin July 2023, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The latest financing brings Gushwork’s total funding to $11 million, the startup said. The funding comes as AI companies, includingOpenAIandPerplexity, begin to chip away at traditional web search, prompting incumbents like Google to roll outAI-generated overviewsand otherconversational featuresacross their search products. Gushwork is betting this shift will create a new opportunity to help businesses surface in AI-driven discovery channels using its automated marketing agents. Founded in 2023 by Nayrhit Bhattacharya (pictured above, right) and Adithya Venkatesh (pictured above, left), Gushwork initially focused on helping small and medium businesses outsource workflows using a mix of AI and human expertise. The startup began narrowing its focus toward search-led marketing after seeing strong customer demand for help with improving online visibility. “When we started, we were focused on helping businesses outsource faster and outsource better,” Bhattacharya told TechCrunch in an interview, adding that the pull around search from customers became increasingly hard to ignore. Gushwork’s platform uses a network of AI agents to automatically generate and update search-optimized content; build backlinks — typically 10 to 20 per customer — through a network of roughly 200 to 300 partner websites; and track inbound leads through an integrated content management system. The goal, Bhattacharya said, is to help businesses surface 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 per month. Gushwork is currently running at about $1.5 million in annualized recurring revenue after rolling out its AI search-focused product around three months ago and is targeting $3 million to $3.5 million ARR in the next three months, Bhattacharya said, adding that the startup is growing about 50% to 80% month over month. Across Gushwork’s customer base, about 20% of website traffic now comes from AI-driven search and chat platforms, but those sources account for around 40% of inbound leads, Bhattacharya said, citing the startup’s internal data. The higher-intent leads, Bhattacharya said, are already translating into business outcomes for some customers. In one case, a professional services client has closed between $200,000 and $350,000 worth of contracts 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 traction. Gushwork’s customer base today is concentrated among high-ticket B2B service providers, industrial distributors, and contract manufacturers, primarily in the U.S., Bhattacharya said. The startup’s average subscription runs about $800 to $900 per month, or roughly $9,000 to $10,000 in annual contract value, he added. The shift toward AI-driven discovery is still in its early stages but is gaining momentum. Tools such as generative AI chatbots and AI web browsers are increasingly being used by buyers to research vendors and products. OpenAI said in July 2025 that ChatGPTreceived about 2.5 billion prompts a dayglobally, including roughly 330 million from U.S. users. Bhattacharya said the trend is beginning to reshape how some businesses approach online visibility. Gushwork plans to use the new funding to expand its engineering team, improve model accuracy, and scale its go-to-market efforts, Bhattacharya said. He added that the startup has more than 800 businesses on its waitlist that it plans to begin onboarding. The startup, headquartered in Delaware with an office in Bengaluru, has about 70 employees in India, along with several contractors.