$64M in GEO Funding. Zero Correlation with Domain Authority.

The two best-funded GEO startups have raised a combined $64 million. Profound ($35M Series B from Sequoia) and Peec AI ($29M Series A) represent the lion's share of venture capital flowing into AI visibility tools. Yet neither ranks in the top 3 for domain authority among dedicated GEO platforms.

Otterly AI, with no disclosed major funding round, sits at #1.

The Funding vs. Authority Data

Company	Funding	Authority Rank	Backlinks	Ref Domains
Otterly AI	Undisclosed	413	5,829	1,465
Profound	$35M (Series B)	361	9,896	2,266
Rankscale	Undisclosed	343	1,445	483
AirOps	Undisclosed	329	22,015	2,768
Scrunch AI	Undisclosed	280	4,656	1,618
Peec AI	$29M (Series A)	264	3,180	1,186

Profound outranks Peec (361 vs 264), but both are beaten by Otterly (413), Rankscale (343), and AirOps (329) — companies that haven't announced comparable funding rounds.

Where Does VC Money Actually Go?

If $64M in funding doesn't buy domain authority, where is it going? Based on public information:

• Product development: Profound tracks 10+ AI engines. Peec supports 115+ languages. These are expensive engineering efforts.
• Enterprise sales teams: Both companies focus on enterprise clients with demo-driven sales processes, not self-serve growth.
• Data infrastructure: Profound claims 400M+ real user AI conversations. That data costs money to collect and store.
• Paid acquisition: SEM, sponsorships, and events — which don't generate backlinks.

Notice what's missing from that list: organic content marketing and community building — the exact activities that build domain authority.

Why Organic Growth Wins in GEO

AirOps tells the most interesting story in our dataset. With 22,015 backlinks — the most of any GEO platform — it has nearly 2.5x Profound's backlink count. Yet its authority rank (329) is lower than Otterly's (413).

The lesson: referring domain diversity matters more than raw backlink volume. Otterly has 1,465 referring domains to AirOps' 2,768, but its links come from a more diverse, higher-quality set of sources.

This is the organic growth playbook at work:

1. Build a product people talk about — Otterly grew to 10,000+ users through word-of-mouth
2. Create content worth citing — original research, guides, and tools earn natural links
3. Engage the community — discussions, mentions, and genuine recommendations compound
4. Be transparent — sharing real data (like this study) builds trust and earns citations

None of these require $35M.

The Bootstrapper's Edge

There's a counterintuitive advantage to being unfunded in the GEO space: constraints force organic growth.

When you can't buy distribution, you build it. When you can't afford a 50-person sales team, you make the product good enough that people find it themselves. When you can't run $100K/month in paid ads, you write content that earns links naturally.

That's the strategy behind 99Visibility. We start at domain authority 0. We don't have $64M. What we have is data (this study), a differentiated product (GEO auditing + fixing at $49-149/mo), and a transparent approach to building authority one piece of original research at a time.

The data says that's enough.

FAQ

Does more funding always mean a worse product?

No. Profound's 10+ AI engine coverage and 400M conversation dataset are genuinely impressive features that required significant investment. The point is that funding correlates with product capabilities, not domain authority. These are different games.

How long does it take to build meaningful domain authority?

Based on our data, Otterly AI reached rank 413 in approximately 2 years. Peec AI reached 264 in under 2 years. Consistent publishing, community engagement, and product quality seem to accelerate the timeline more than any amount of capital.

Is 99Visibility bootstrapped?

Yes. 99Visibility is built by Torch99, a bootstrapped company. We believe the data in this study supports the thesis that organic authority can be built without venture capital — and that domain authority matters more than funding when it comes to AI search visibility.