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Profound

AI marketing platform: AI Search (answer-engine) visibility analytics plus an agentic AI Marketer that researches, writes, reports and runs AI Search ads
Profound (legally Cooper Square Technologies Inc.) is a New York AI marketing platform that began as answer-engine optimization analytics — showing brands which prompts buyers type into ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, how often and how accurately the models cite them, and where competitors win — built on a double-opt-in panel of more than 2 billion real user prompts. It has since expanded into an agentic workbench: an AI Marketer that deploys sub-agents to research, write, refresh content and analyse campaigns, a Context Manager that keeps brand positioning current, and Ads Studio for launching and optimising AI Search ads across OpenAI, Google and Meta. Founded in 2024 by James Cadwallader and Dylan Babbs, who met at South Park Commons, it raised a $20M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins (June 2025), a $35M Series B led by Sequoia (August 2025), a $96M Series C at a $1B valuation led by Lightspeed (February 2026) and, on 2026-09-15, a $180M Series D at a $1.8B valuation co-led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, for roughly $335M raised. It serves more than 1,000 enterprise brands including one third of the Fortune 100, and is using the Series D to expand an applied AI lab in New York and San Francisco that post-trains models for marketing work. No revenue figure is disclosed.
AI 📍 New York, NY Founded 2024
Current Valuation
$1.8B
as of 2026-09-15
UNICORN

QL Price

$1.9B
+4% vs last round
QuantLogix's current estimate for Profound, published 2026-10-07 — in line with the last disclosed round of $1.8B (2026-09-15).
Confidence
medium
Basis
secondary led
What backs this price
Last disclosed round $1.8B 2026-09-15 weight 0.96
Secondary market print $2.0B 2026-06-27 weight 0.54
How this price has held up
No round has priced for Profound since QuantLogix began publishing a price for it, so there is nothing to grade yet. The claim above is on the record from 2026-10-07 and will be graded against the next priced round. See the full accuracy record →
How to actually get exposure to Profound →
Which publicly-traded funds already hold it, what $10,000 buys, and whether any route is open to you.
Cite this price as QuantLogix QL Price, Profound, 2026-10-07 (917910ed03193874). The id pins this exact claim, so a citation stays checkable after the price moves. Model estimate for research — not a quote, target price, or investment advice.

IPO Outlookprivate

Is Profound going public?
No. Profound has no imminent IPO plans on record. It is still private.
What is Profound's valuation in 2026?
Profound is valued at $1.8B as of 09/15/2026, set by its Series D ($180M, Sep 2026). That is the last confirmed mark, not a live price — private shares do not trade continuously.
Has Profound filed an S-1?
No public S-1 is on file for Profound.
Who are Profound's investors?
Profound's investors include Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Saga Ventures, South Park Commons and 5 more.
How much has Profound raised?
Profound has raised $335M in total across 5 disclosed rounds, most recently a Series D of $180M in Sep 2026.
Is Profound publicly traded — can you buy Profound stock?
No. Profound is a private company — its shares are not listed on any exchange and there is no ticker. The routes to exposure are pre-IPO secondary marketplaces and funds (accredited investors), employee tender offers when the company runs one, and public companies with read-through exposure. QuantLogix maps every route it can verify for Profound on its Pre-IPO Access Desk.
How to actually get exposure to Profound →
Answers are derived from the roster record shown on this page — filing status, last round and confirmed marks. Where the record is silent, the answer says so rather than guessing.

Company Profile

CEO
James Cadwallader
Founded
2024
HQ
New York, NY
Total Raised
$335M
Growth
Valuation 1.8x in under seven months ($1B Series C 2026-02-24 to $1.8B Series D 2026-09-15) and five rounds in about 25 months from an August 2024 seed. Customer base went from 700+ enterprises and >10% of the Fortune 500 at the Series C to 1,000+ enterprise brands, one third of the Fortune 100 and 16% of the Fortune 500 at the Series D; customers named include Comcast, Estée Lauder, Walmart, Campari, RBC, U.S. Bank, Zoom, ServiceNow, Ramp, Cursor, MongoDB and Figma.
Last Round
Series D — $180M (Sep 2026) · Lead: Sequoia Capital / Kleiner Perkins (co-led)
IPO Status
no imminent plans

Fundraising Status

Series D · $180M · 1 mo ago
no imminent plansTotal raised $335M5 disclosed rounds

Series D Impact

Round Size
$180M
Primary financing announced
Post-Money Valuation
$1.8B
Company-announced mark
Valuation Step-Up
+80.0%
vs Series C at $1.0B
Round / Post-Money
10.0%
New capital ÷ post-money
Disclosed Funding
$335M
Cumulative disclosed rounds
Step-up compares disclosed post-money valuations. Round / post-money is a financing-size ratio, not an ownership or dilution estimate.

Secondary Market

Implied price / share
$30
Last round price / share
$27.32
vs last round
+9.8%
Open interest
1
Last round price vs secondary price
Last round vs current secondary price per share$27.32Last round$30.00Current
Secondary price return by period
Secondary market period returns3-month0.0%6-month0.0%1-year0.0%All-time0.0%
Implied per-share price from private secondary transactions, as of Jun 2026. This is a point estimate, not a quote — the feed carries no bid, ask or spread, and a secondary print is evidence of what someone paid on that date rather than a live market. Compare across every tracked name →

Growth & Valuation

Valuation across funding rounds
Valuation growth across funding rounds$1.0B$1.8BFeb '26Sep '26
Capital raised per round
Capital raised per funding round$4MSeed$20MSeries A$35MSeries B$96MSeries C$180MSeries D
Charts built from publicly disclosed funding rounds and revenue estimates. Approximate, not real-time, not investment advice.

Funding History

RoundAmountDateLead InvestorPost-Money
Series D$180MSep 2026Sequoia Capital / Kleiner Perkins (co-led)$1.8B
Series C$96MFeb 2026Lightspeed Venture Partners$1.0B
Series B$35MAug 2025Sequoia Capital—
Series A$20MJun 2025Kleiner Perkins—
Seed$3.5MAug 2024——

Vertical Intelligence — AI / ML

Open models
0
Downloads (30d)
0
across all models
Followers
7
Attributed to Hugging Face organization "Profound" as of 2026-10-04. Open-weights footprint only — closed-model usage is not publicly measurable. Verify on Hugging Face ↗

Talent Signal

Hiring trend
▼ Hiring downtrend
-15% vs 2026-08
Open roles
74
via ashby
Product-build share
26%
engineering, research, product, design
Trajectory
tightening
balanced build + GTM — 26% builders vs 74% go-to-market/G&A — scaling both sides.
Open roles trending down; no tracked executive churn.
Open roles by month
Open roles by month87Aug '2674Sep '26
Open roles by function
Open roles by functionOther24Sales & GTM17Ops & People10Engineering8Data & ML4Design4Security3Marketing3Legal & Policy1
■ product-building   ■ go-to-market / G&A
Member of Technical Staff, FrontendMember of Technical Staff, Data EngineerMember of Technical Staff, BackendMember of Technical Staff, FullstackMember of Technical Staff, Product DesignMember of Technical Staff, Analytics Engineer
Counted from Profound's live job board as of 2026-09-14; role functions classified from posting titles. Open-role counts are an activity signal, not headcount. Refreshed monthly.

Founders & Key People

James CadwalladerDylan Babbs

Investors

Sequoia Capital · Kleiner Perkins · Lightspeed Venture Partners · Khosla Ventures · Saga Ventures · South Park Commons · Evantic · NVentures · SV Angel · Nat Friedman · Daniel Gross

Products

  • AI Search (answer-engine) visibility analytics: which prompts buyers use in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and others, how often and how accurately a brand is cited, sentiment per offering, competitor prompt research — built on a panel of 2B+ real user prompts (double opt-in, PII-filtered)
  • AI Marketer: an agent orchestrator that scans brand data and AI answers, surfaces opportunities and deploys sub-agents to research, write, refresh content, find earned media and analyse paid performance; powered by Context Manager, a living synthesis of brand context from knowledge bases, transcripts and threads
  • Profound Agents (launched with the Series C, 500+ customers using daily at the time) and Aim, which autonomously plans AI-visibility initiatives
  • Ads Studio (July 2026): build, launch, batch-edit and optimise AI Search ad campaigns across OpenAI, Google and Meta ad managers with Profound's own tracking pixel
  • Profound Index Report: periodic published research on AI Search leaders by industry and region

Competitors

Otterly · AthenaHQ · BrandRank.AI · Semrush AI Tracking · Peec AI · Scrunch AI
AIGEOAEOMarketingAI SEOAI AgentsRecently Funded
Private-company numbers are not real-time. Reflects publicly disclosed valuations from press releases, news reports, and tender offers as of 2026-09-15. Refreshed quarterly.