Profound vs ScalePost

Estée Lauder Adopts GEO for AI Visibility

Estée Lauder has forged a global partnership with AI marketing platform Profound to enhance its brands' visibility in generative AI systems like ChatGPT and Gemini. The beauty conglomerate will leverage Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to analyze and improve how its products appear in AI-driven search and answer platforms. This initiative, integrated into its One Operating Ecosystem, marks a significant step in treating AI visibility as a core marketing discipline, with content optimization across product pages, blogs, and YouTube channels. The partnership highlights the growing importance of AI assistants as new discovery channels for consumers.

• Estée Lauder partners with Profound, an AI marketing platform, for global GEO strategy.
• Focus is on analyzing and optimizing brand presence in AI systems like ChatGPT and Gemini.
• The initiative will be deployed across Estée Lauder's entire brand portfolio worldwide.

AI search marketing startup Profound raises $180M Series D at $1.8B valuation

Profound, a marketing software startup that helps brands appear in AI search results, announced a $180 million Series D funding round at a $1.8 billion valuation, just seven months after its $96 million Series C. The round was co-led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, and South Park Commons. The company, which launched two years ago as an analytics platform, now focuses on generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO), helping businesses understand how AI systems influence consumer brand discovery. Profound reports revenue growth of 3x in the past six months and serves over 1,000 enterprise customers, including Comcast, The Estée Lauder Companies, and Walmart. The funding will likely support expansion and product development in the rapidly growing AI search optimization space.

• Profound raised $180 million in Series D funding.
• The valuation is $1.8 billion, making Profound a unicorn.
• Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins co-led the round.

250 New Unicorns: AI Drives Billion-Dollar Wave in Marketing

According to Crunchbase, 250 companies reached a $1 billion valuation by mid-August 2026, surpassing the 193 unicorns created in all of 2025. AI is the primary driver, attracting capital across various sectors, including marketing technology. Notable new unicorns include Profound, which measures brand visibility in AI responses, Higgsfield, a generative AI content production platform, and Simile, which develops synthetic users for market research. These companies illustrate investor confidence in AI-powered marketing solutions. The article notes that while German unicorns like Neura Robotics, Proxima Fusion, Osapiens, and Moss emerged in 2026, none are marketing-focused. Overall, venture capital is increasingly concentrating on AI applications within sales, marketing, and CRM, though the total volume remains below the 2021-2022 boom.

• Crunchbase reported 250 new unicorns by mid-August 2026, compared to 193 in all of 2025.
• Profound raised $96 million in February, reaching a valuation of $1 billion.
• Higgsfield raised $400 million in August, at a valuation of $5.4 billion.

ScalePost launches About page with team and advisors, announces Awin partnership

ScalePost's about page now lists CEO Ahmed Malik, Head of Partnerships Gregory Love, engineers Matt Rkiouak and Siméon Ferez, and advisors including Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer, former Fast Company CEO Eric Schurenberg, and CNBC founder Tom Rogers. The page also features a press release about a partnership with Awin to expand discovery intelligence.

Awin Expands Discovery Intelligence with AI Visibility

Awin announced on 1 July 2026 a set of platform enhancements and a new partnership to measure and improve brand visibility inside AI-driven discovery experiences. The global marketing-technology company revealed a collaboration with ScalePost and additional collaborations with Peec.ai and Profound to capture first-party AI citation data and link those signals to conversion metrics. Awin is launching platform features including “AI Visibility” and “Smart Search” to show when and how brands appear in AI applications, help publishers understand their contribution to discovery, and speed publisher partner selection via natural-language search. The move responds to rising “zero-click” AI answers in search and aims to give advertisers clearer, first-party measurement of AI-driven discovery across the customer journey.

• Awin announced a partnership with ScalePost to capture first-party AI citation data and improve visibility into AI-driven brand discovery.
• Awin introduced new platform features named AI Visibility and Smart Search to measure brand appearances in AI applications and simplify publisher partner discovery.
• Awin said linking first-party citation data with its conversion signals can raise observed engagement by three- to six-fold.

Awin Expands Discovery Intelligence with ScalePost Partnership

Awin announced a partnership with ScalePost and a set of platform enhancements aimed at measuring and acting on AI-driven brand discovery. The company introduced capabilities named AI Visibility and Smart Search to show when brands are surfaced in AI-driven experiences and to help advertisers find publisher partners using natural-language prompts. ScalePost will act as an additional measurement layer, using first‑party data to record real AI citations. Awin also cited collaborations with Peec.ai and Profound to broaden influence measurement across the customer journey, and claimed that accounting for AI interactions can increase observed engagement by three to six times.

• Awin announced a partnership with ScalePost to improve measurement of AI-driven brand discovery.
• Awin introduced new platform features called AI Visibility and Smart Search to surface AI-driven discovery signals and speed partner discovery.
• ScalePost uses first‑party data to measure real AI citations and will act as an additional measurement layer.