As consumers increasingly turn to AI assistants instead of Google to discover products, The Prompting Company has raised $6.5 million in seed funding to help brands get mentioned — and recommended — inside ChatGPT and other AI-driven interfaces.
The round was led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Base10 Partners, Y Combinator, Firedrop, and angel investors including Logan Kilpatrick. The YC-backed startup already works with Rippling, Rho, Motion, Vapi, Fondo, Kernel, and Traceloop, and is collaborating with NVIDIA on next-generation AI search integrations.
Marketing to Machines: The Next Frontier
As AI agents replace search engines as the first stop for discovery, consumer behavior is changing fast. Recent data suggests retailers could see a 520% increase in traffic from AI prompts and chatbots in 2025, as users ask models like ChatGPT or Claude for recommendations instead of browsing online.
That shift is the core insight behind The Prompting Company’s approach to GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — a new discipline for ensuring AI agents, not just humans, can find and understand a brand’s offerings.
“Most website traffic growth today comes from AI bots, not people,” said Kevin Chandra, co-founder and CEO of The Prompting Company. “Developers are already asking AI tools for product suggestions in their workflow. Over time, AI will handle much of the buying journey — and brands need to be ready.”
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How It Works
The Prompting Company helps businesses make their products discoverable and citeable by AI systems. Its platform analyzes the types of questions AI models are asking, identifies purchase-intent queries, and automatically generates AI-optimized pages that answer them.
These pages act as structured, machine-readable endpoints, ensuring large language models (LLMs) can reference them even when a company doesn’t rank on traditional search engines.
The company refers to this as building an “AI-facing website” — a streamlined version of a company’s site designed for agents, not humans. These pages eliminate unnecessary navigation, pop-ups, and marketing fluff, focusing instead on clean data structures and context-rich responses that AI models can easily interpret.
“Today’s fastest-growing user segment online isn’t human — it’s AI agents,” Chandra said. “They need a completely different interface.”
From SEO to GEO
While SEO remains relevant, GEO represents the next evolution of digital visibility — where AI recommendations replace keyword rankings. Instead of optimizing for Google search, companies optimize for AI conversations.
The approach has gained traction as major players like Google test agent-to-agent commerce protocols and OpenAI deepens its partnership with Stripe, enabling AI systems to browse, compare, and purchase products autonomously.
“Imagine an AI agent that can buy items, process returns, or compare deals without a human clicking through,” said Chandra. “We help companies expose those actions to agents — laying the groundwork for AI-to-AI commerce.”
Early Traction and Growth
Just four months after launch, The Prompting Company already hosts over 500,000 AI-optimized pages and drives tens of millions of monthly visits to client sites. The startup primarily serves fintech, SaaS, and developer tools, and counts a Fortune 10 company among its customers.
Revenue comes from a subscription-based model, with pricing tied to the number of prompts tracked and pages hosted.
“If your product isn’t being cited in ChatGPT, you’re invisible,” said Arnav Sahu, partner at Peak XV Partners. “The Prompting Company is building the foundational infrastructure for AI-driven product discovery — already powering both Fortune 10 enterprises and fast-growing startups.”
Founders with a Track Record
The founders — Kevin Chandra, Michelle Marcelline, and Albert Punama — are second-time YC founders and longtime collaborators. Originally from Indonesia, the trio met as freshmen and went on to create Typedream (YC W20), a no-code website builder later acquired by beehiiv, and Cotter, a passwordless authentication SDK acquired by Stytch.
Now, they’re focused on shaping how AI agents browse, recommend, and buy — a future where machine audiences matter as much as human ones.
“We believe every brand will soon need to market to AI agents as seriously as they market to people,” Chandra said. “We’re building the tools to make that possible.”
About The Prompting Company
The Prompting Company helps brands get discovered and recommended inside AI agents like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Using Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), its platform builds structured, AI-readable content that ensures large language models can surface a brand’s products organically within conversations.
