Searchable raises £4m to help brands track AI search engines' recommendations
This article covers Searchable, a London-based AI startup, and its launch of a toolkit to help brands understand and improve how large language models surface and recommend their content, alongside a £4m funding round led by Freestyle VC. The development aims to give marketers real-time visibility into AI search engines and to support brands navigating changes to discoverability as conversational interfaces replace traditional search results.
Searchable, a London-based AI startup, has built a toolkit to help brands understand and improve how large language models surface and recommend their content. The product aims to give marketers a “real-time window” into visibility inside AI search engines at a moment when conversational responses are replacing traditional search results.
Why it matters
AI-driven search interfaces such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity increasingly act as the first point of contact for consumers seeking information. That change shifts optimisation away from traditional search engine optimisation towards what some call AI engine optimisation. For brands and marketing teams, visibility in these models can determine discoverability and customer acquisition in ways that differ from the old blue-link era.
Searchable’s approach addresses that shift by translating how models rank and recommend content into actionable guidance for marketers. Early customer metrics — rapid recurring revenue on launch and reported visibility gains — suggest there is immediate commercial demand for tools that translate LLM behaviour into marketing signals.
Inside the product
Searchable monitors how large language models surface and recommend a brand across multiple AI engines, offering:
- visibility monitoring across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity
- alerts when a brand gains or loses prominence in AI recommendations
- prescriptive recommendations for improving rankings, including content rewrites and metadata changes optimised for LLMs
- integrations with Google Analytics and Search Console
- a natural-language query interface so marketers can ask questions such as “Which AI models recommend us?” or “Where are we losing visibility?”
The company describes the platform as an AI marketing assistant that observes and advises on model behaviour. Searchable says its invite-only soft launch generated six figures in recurring revenue within 24 hours and that early customers have seen up to 40 percent increases in AI visibility and 50 percent reductions in SEO workload. The product was built in about 60 days and the team plans to add predictive modelling and automated AI training to help brands maintain long-term visibility.
Who are the investors?
Searchable has raised funding to commercialise the product and scale the team. The round was led by early-stage investor Freestyle VC and values the business at £40 million.
In the announcement, Maria Palma, General Partner at Freestyle VC, said:
Consumer search behaviour has shifted dramatically in the past year. AEO – AI Engine Optimisation – has become a defining category. Searchable’s analytics platform, and more importantly its recommendation engine, give brands a practical way to take hold of this opportunity.
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Founder perspective
Searchable was founded by Chris Donnelly, a serial entrepreneur with previous exits and rapid-growth businesses in the marketing and creative sectors. His track record is often cited as part of Searchable’s early credibility.
In the announcement, Chris Donnelly, Founder at Searchable, said:
AI is changing marketing faster than Google did. In the announcement, Chris Donnelly, Founder at Searchable, said: We’re no longer optimising for humans. We’re optimising for the platforms that talk to humans. In the announcement, Chris Donnelly, Founder at Searchable, said: It’s the new front door to the internet. In the announcement, Chris Donnelly, Founder at Searchable, said: If you’re not indexed, you don’t exist.
Donnelly previously founded Verb Brands, a luxury digital agency that worked with clients including Bugatti and Jimmy Choo and was sold in 2021 for an eight-figure sum. He also co-founded Lottie, which scaled to a reported £250 million valuation in three years. The founder frames the current moment as comparable to early opportunities in social ad markets, when first movers captured unusually high returns.
The bigger picture
Analysts project AI search and related tooling could create tens of billions of pounds of value by 2030, with estimates cited in the announcement ranging from £25 billion to £43 billion. That projection, combined with shifting budget priorities at major brands, is prompting demand for tools that translate opaque LLM behaviour into marketing outcomes.
The deal and early traction also reflect a wider trend in the UK and Europe: local startups building tooling for AI infrastructure and marketing, and brands experimenting with channels beyond incumbent US platforms. For investors and marketing teams, AEO is emerging as a defined category that sits at the intersection of AI, search and martech.
Searchable’s launch adds to London’s growing AI tooling scene and signals increasing commercialisation of model-level optimisation. As conversational interfaces become the mainstream gateway to information, UK and European brands and startups will need clearer ways to measure and influence how they appear inside those models.
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