Insider Brief
- Linkup raised $10 million in seed funding led by Gradient, with participation from Elaia, Seedcamp, and other investors to expand its real-time web search infrastructure for AI products.
- Founded by Philippe Mizrahi, Boris Toledano, and Denis Charrier, the company provides an API that enables AI systems to retrieve current, verifiable web information instead of relying only on static training data.
- Since launching its API in 2024, Linkup has gained hundreds of customers including AI startups and enterprises such as KPMG, with funding supporting hiring and platform expansion across the U.S. and Europe.
PRESS RELEASE — Linkup, a platform that enables AI product to search and retrieve real-time information from the web, announced a $10 million seed round led by Gradient, with participation from Elaia, Leblon Capital, Weekend Fund, existing investors Seedcamp, Axeleo Capital, Motier Ventures, OPRTRS CLUB and leading angel investors including Olivier Pomel (Datadog), Arthur Mensch (Mistral), Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang (Deel), and Florian Douetteau (Dataiku). The funding will enable Linkup to expand its team and push the boundaries of its product even further, in order to serve the rapidly growing demand from AI products worldwide.
Linkup was founded by a team at the intersection of AI, product, and strategy: CEO Philippe Mizrahi (ex-Lyft, Amundsen), COO Boris Toledano (ex-McKinsey), and CTO Denis Charrier, a seasoned entrepreneur who built one of Europe’s first vector search engines at Niland (acquired by Spotify).
As AI adoption accelerates across industries, the quality and accuracy of AI-generated responses have become paramount. However, AI applications today often rely on static training data that quickly becomes outdated, limiting their ability to access reliable and relevant information. Linkup solves this critical infrastructure challenge by providing AI products with direct access to real-time web information, ensuring every response is grounded in the most relevant and current data available.
“Google Search revolutionized how humans access information on the internet over the past 20 years. We’re now building that same foundational capability for AI systems,” said Phil Mizrahi, founder and CEO of Linkup. “Our technology extracts atoms of information from across the web to create a granular, precise index that’s natively adapted to how AI systems process and understand information. This funding will accelerate our ability to scale our infrastructure and meet the explosive demand we’re seeing from companies building AI products.”
Since launching its API in late 2024, Linkup has rapidly gained traction with hundreds of customers worldwide, from leading AI companies like Artisan to global enterprises like KPMG. By bridging the gap between AI systems and the web, Linkup enables critical use cases across organizations, spanning general-purpose conversational AI, sophisticated AI agents, or database enrichment capabilities
“As AI systems become increasingly autonomous and make more independent decisions, it’s critical that these decisions are based on trusted, verifiable information,” said Darian Shirazi, Managing Partner at Gradient. “Linkup is building the essential infrastructure layer that ensures AI agents can search and access information in real-time. Their unique approach to indexing and their traction with major customers demonstrates they’re solving a fundamental need in the AI ecosystem.”
The company is aggressively hiring across go-to-market and technical roles in New York, San Francisco, and Paris to support its rapid growth and expand its platform capabilities.
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About Linkup
Founded in 2024, Linkup has developed the industry’s leading web search API specifically architected for AI systems. The company’s proprietary indexing technology serves thousands globally, delivering real-time, structured web data optimized for AI consumption. Linkup is building the critical infrastructure layer for the AI-native internet. Visit https://www.linkup.so/
About Gradient
Gradient has been investing at the forefront of artificial intelligence since 2017. We are led by former founders, technical experts, and domain specialists who have supported hundreds of AI founders from the beginning. Gradient is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, visit www.gradient.com.
Contact:
Phil Mizrahi
Linkup
contact@linkup.so
Featured image: Credit: Linkup
