- AI-powered search startup Glean announced on Tuesday that it has raised $260 million in a Series E funding round, which values the tech company at $4.6 billion.
- The round is led by Altimeter and DST Global, with Craft Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 joining as new investors in the company.
OUR TAKE
AI-powered search startup Glean has raised $260 million in Series E funding, doubling its valuation to $4.6 billion. Led by Altimeter and DST Global, with new investors including Craft Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, the company now totals over $600 million in funding. Glean, which leverages generative AI to enhance enterprise search, competes against tech giants and startups in the evolving AI landscape. The surge in funding underscores growing confidence in AI’s transformative potential for businesses.
-Tacy Ding, BTW reporter
What happened
Artificial intelligence-powered search startup Glean announced on Tuesday that it has secured $260 million in a funding round, valuing the company at $4.6 billion—more than double its previous valuation. The Palo Alto, California-based firm, ranked No. 43 on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, has now raised over $600 million to date from more than 20 investors.
Glean faces competition from a range of well-funded generative AI startups and tech giants, aiming to rival Microsoft Copilot and Amazon’s chatbot, Q. It also seeks to disrupt the field of cognitive search tools, competing with providers such as Perplexity, Coveo, Sinequa, and Lucidworks.
Glean’s Series E round, led by Altimeter and DST Global, includes Craft Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, all of which are new investors in the company.
Existing investors in the round include Coatue, General Catalyst, ICONIQ Growth, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Latitude Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sequoia Capital.
Also read: Who is Arvind Jain? CEO of Glean wants to put enterprise knowledge into search
Also read: SoftBank joins $130M fund to boost AI startups
Why it’s important
Founder and CEO Arvind Jain launched Glean in 2019 with other former Google engineers as an enterprise search engine. The company quickly shifted focus to generative AI. Jain has described Glean as combining elements of Google and ChatGPT for businesses. It provides conversational AI to sift through internal data, retrieve information, and deliver quick answers. Jain is also a co-founder of Rubrik, which had a successful initial public offering in April.
“Businesses today are in the midst of an AI transformation — one that promises to be as big or bigger than the internet, mobile, cloud, and other major technology shifts of the past century,” Jain said in a blog post announcing the latest round.
Global enterprise spending on generative AI is projected to soar from $16 billion in 2023 to $143 billion by 2027, accounting for 28% of AI expenditures, according to tech research and advisory firm IDC.
