Gushwork AI's $9M seed bets on SMB visibility within AI search engines

Gushwork AI closed a $9M seed round led by Susquehanna Asia VC in February 2026, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed, B Capital, Seaborne Capital, Beenext, Sparrow Capital, and 2.2 Capital. Founded in 2023 by Nayrhit Bhattacharya and Adithya Venkatesh, the company has built autonomous AI agents designed to ensure business websites are recommended by AI search engines—including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity—when potential customers pose relevant queries. The core product suite includes a page creation engine, content management tools, a leads dashboard, and analytics. Gushwork operates on a subscription model ranging from $800 to $2,200 per month, with a majority engineering team based in India and a significant presence in the US, which the company identifies as its largest customer market.

The round arrives as a direct response to a structural shift in how small and medium businesses acquire customers. Traditional search-engine optimization and paid-search channels face competition from agentic AI systems that now mediate customer discovery. Gushwork’s thesis appears to be that SMBs lack native tools to optimize for AI-engine visibility and lead capture. According to the company, 80% of its customer base reports a 500% spike in website impressions and a 50% increase in inbound lead flow within 60 days of deployment. As of February 2026, Gushwork reported over 300 active customers and more than 800 on a waitlist. The investor mix—anchored by Susquehanna Asia VC and including prior backers—suggests sustained confidence in the category.

Open questions remain around unit economics, churn, and the durability of AI-search discovery as a persistent marketing lever. An open question is whether the lead quality flowing through these AI engines matches traditional channels or whether conversion rates validate the claimed volume lifts. Equally unresolved is how dependent Gushwork’s TAM remains on the recommendation algorithms and moat of proprietary AI models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity), given that SMB margins may not sustain premium SaaS pricing if platform policy or algorithmic changes shift the value exchange. Worth watching whether the waitlist converts at the claimed rate and whether customer retention sustains at the scale the company is targeting with its product and engineering acceleration roadmap.