As AI-powered search tools reshape how businesses are discovered online, an India-founded startup Gushing work helps businesses attract customers from platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity – with early growth starting to attract investor support.
The two-year-old startup announced Thursday that it has raised $9 million in a funding 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-funding, up from around $7.5 million post-launch. $2.1 million pre-seed 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 Perplexityare starting to chip away at traditional web search, prompting incumbents like Google to jump in AI-generated insights and others conversational features through their research products. Gushwork is betting that this shift will create a new opportunity to help businesses appear in AI-powered 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-sized businesses outsource their workflows using a blend of AI and human expertise. The startup began focusing on search-based marketing after seeing high customer demand for help in improving online visibility.
“When we started, we were focused on helping companies outsource faster and better,” Bhattacharya told TechCrunch in an interview, adding that customer interest seeking was becoming increasingly difficult 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 client – through a network of around 200 to 300 partner websites; and track inbound leads with an integrated content management system. The goal, Bhattacharya said, is to help businesses appear in both traditional search results and AI-generated responses without relying on large internal marketing teams.
The startup says it has signed up more than 300 paying customers — about 95% of them in the U.S. — with subscriptions starting at $800 per month. Gushwork is currently generating about $1.5 million in annualized recurring revenue after rolling out its AI research-focused product about three months ago and is targeting an ARR of $3-3.5 million over the next three months, Bhattacharya said, adding that the startup is growing about 50-80% month-over-month.
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Among 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.
According to Bhattacharya, higher-intent leads are already translating into business results for some clients. In one case, a professional services client closed contracts worth between $200,000 and $350,000 after adopting the platform, he said, declining to disclose the client’s name. He added that many users are seeing significant growth in the pipeline as AI-driven discovery gains traction.
Gushwork’s customer base today is concentrated among high-cost B2B service providers, industrial distributors and contract manufacturers, primarily in the United States, Bhattacharya said. The startup’s average subscription costs between $800 and $900 per month, or about $9,000 to $10,000 in annual contract value, he added.
The transition to AI-driven discovery is still in its early stages, but it is gaining momentum. Tools such as generative chatbots and AI web browsers are increasingly used by buyers to research suppliers and products. OpenAI said in July 2025 that ChatGPT received approximately 2.5 billion messages per day worldwide, with around 330 million coming from US users. Bhattacharya said the trend is starting 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 up its commercialization efforts, Bhattacharya said. He added that the startup has more than 800 companies on its waiting list that it plans to begin onboarding.
The startup, which is headquartered in Delaware and has an office in Bangalore, has around 70 employees in India, as well as several contractors.
Jagmeet covers startups, technology policy updates and all other major technology developments in India for TechCrunch. He previously worked as a senior correspondent at NDTV.
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