AI performance marketing platform Searchable bags $4 million in funding round led by Freestyle

Searchable, a London-based startup, has raised $4 million at a $40 million valuation, led by early stage venture capital firm Freestyle.

The company says it is on a mission to help brands understand how they’re seen, ranked, and recommended by AI.

“AI is changing marketing faster than Google did,” says founder Chris Donnelly. “We’re no longer optimising for humans. We’re optimising for the platforms that talk to humans.”

Searchable acts as a command centre for LLMs. It tracks how brands appear across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity - revealing whether a product is being surfaced, ignored, or misread - and then helps fix it. The platform rewrites content, improves metadata, and makes it more ‘readable’ to large language models.

Powered by agentic AI, it connects analytics from GA4 and Search Console into an interface where marketers can ask: Which AI models recommend us? or Where am I losing visibility?

“The way consumers search has changed drastically in the past year and AEO has emerged as a defining consumer category”, says Maria Palma, General Partner at Freestyle.

“While we have seen some companies start to innovate in AI marketing, the team at Searchable has the leading analytics tool but more importantly a recommendation engine that shows brands how to take hold of this opportunity”.

Donnelly, who sold Verb for $30 million and scaled Lottie to a nine figure valuation, believes we’re in a moment that mirrors the early days of social ads. “In 2012, £10 in Facebook spend could return hundreds because no one else was doing it,” he says. “That same window exists now - for brands who learn to be visible to AI.”

Searchable’s plans include expanding analytics integrations, predictive modelling, and automated content training for AI systems. “Our goal is to give every business a living, breathing AI marketing team,” Donnelly adds. “One that operates at machine speed - because that’s the only way to keep up.”

RTIH AI in Retail Awards

RTIH proudly presents the first edition of its AI in Retail Awards, sponsored by 3D Cloud and EdTech Innovation Hub.

This is now open for entries. Deadline for submissions is Friday, 5th December. It’s free to enter and you can do so across multiple categories.

Check out categories and entry forms here.

As we witness a digital transformation revolution across all channels, AI tools are reshaping the omnichannel game, from personalising customer experiences to optimising inventory, uncovering insights into consumer behaviour, and enhancing the human element of retailers' businesses.

With 2025 set to be the year when AI and especially gen AI shake off the ‘heavily hyped’ tag and become embedded in retail business processes, our newly launched awards celebrate global technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world and the resulting benefits for retailers, shoppers and employees.

Our 2025 winners will be those companies who not only recognise the potential of AI, but also make it usable in everyday work - resulting in more efficiency and innovation in all areas.

Winners will be announced at an evening event at The Barbican in Central London on Thursday, 29th January. This will kick off with a drinks reception in the stunning Conservatory, followed by a three course meal, and awards ceremony in the Garden Room.