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London's Searchable raised €11.9M in a Headline-led Series A at a €72.1M valuation to help brands win visibility and traffic from AI search engines in May 2026.
Key Takeaways
- Searchable raised about €11.9M ($14M, £10.3M) in a Series A led by Headline, announced May 18, 2026.
- The round values the London startup at about €72.1M ($85M), up from $40M at its December 2025 pre-seed.
- The company reports $2M in annual recurring revenue within 4.5 months of launch.
Lead
Searchable, a London startup that tracks and improves how brands appear in AI-generated answers, raised about €11.9M on May 18, 2026. The figure equals $14M or £10.3M. Headline, the venture firm whose past portfolio includes Bumble, Farfetch and Sonos, led the Series A at a valuation of roughly €72.1M ($85M). Founder Chris Donnelly said the money will go to product development and expansion in the US and UK.
What Does Searchable Actually Sell?
Searchable sells a performance-marketing dashboard for AI-led search, which it calls a growth command centre. It monitors brand visibility across 10 AI engines, including assistants such as ChatGPT, and connects to Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Interactive agents then surface recommendations meant to lift traffic. The company positions the product as an execution tool, not only a reporting layer.
That puts it in a crowded field of "generative engine optimisation" vendors, many of which grew out of traditional SEO software. Searchable's pitch is that it links AI visibility to measurable traffic, rather than simply reporting a ranking.
How Fast Has the Valuation Moved?
The valuation roughly doubled in about five and a half months. In December 2025, Searchable closed a $4M pre-seed led by Freestyle VC at a $40M valuation, according to Donnelly's announcement at the time. The May round values it at $85M, a 2.1x step-up.
The company says it reached $2M in annual recurring revenue (£1.4M) in under 4.5 months after launch. On that figure, the $85M valuation is about 42 times ARR. That multiple is rich for software, and it prices in rapid growth rather than the current base. Total disclosed funding now stands at about $18M.
What Traction Has the Company Reported?
Searchable says it has onboarded nearly 1,000 customers, with enterprise clients including American Express, KPMG and Siemens. The figures come from the company's own announcement and have not been independently audited.
Two performance claims also come from the company. It says enterprise customers saw a 22% increase in AI-driven traffic within 60 days. Donnelly also said, citing internal data, that customers arriving from ChatGPT and other large language models convert at three times the rate of other visitors. Both numbers describe aggregates across self-selected customers, and neither comes with a stated sample size or baseline.
"Search is going through a once-in-a-generation reset," Donnelly said. "When an AI assistant recommends your brand, customers arrive with more intent, more trust and a shorter path to purchase."
Dominic Wilhelm, a partner at Headline, said AI-driven discovery is rewriting how customers find products.
Why Does the Round Matter for the Category?
The round shows investors will pay growth-stage prices for tools that sit between marketers and AI assistants. Brands have spent two decades optimising for Google's ranked links. AI assistants return a handful of recommended names, which raises the stakes of being excluded.
The weakness of the category is dependency. Searchable's product relies on data and behaviour from third-party engines that can change their outputs, citation rules or access without notice. Larger incumbents in SEO and analytics are also adding AI-visibility modules, which narrows the window for a standalone vendor. A startup with under a year of operating history has to show that its retention holds after the novelty fades.
What Comes Next for Searchable?
Searchable will most likely spend on engineering for its execution engine, which turns insights into actions, and on sales and marketing in the US. The company has not disclosed headcount, burn or a target for the next financing.
Two scenarios stand out. If the traffic claims hold up across a larger customer base, the 42x multiple compresses quickly as ARR grows. If AI engines change how they cite brands, or if incumbents bundle similar features at lower cost, the company will face pressure on pricing and churn.
Outlook
Searchable has gone from launch to a Series A at $85M in about half a year, backed by a lead investor with a track record in consumer and commerce brands. Its reported ARR and customer count support the round, but both are company figures and still early. The next test is whether AI-search spending becomes a durable marketing budget line or a short-lived experiment.
