Gushwork raises $9 million to mine ChatGPT-style AI search for sales leads

Gushwork raised $9 million in a seed round led by SIG and Lightspeed as the startup bets that AI search engines can replace much of traditional lead-generation work for sales teams. The financing arrives as customers are already using integrations with generative search tools such as ChatGPT to discover prospects and accelerate outreach.

Investors are backing a simple premise: large language models and purpose-built search can sift signals across public and internal data faster than manual research. Gushwork has positioned its product to plug into those AI search flows, allowing sales operations to query aggregated sources and return candidate accounts and contacts in conversational form. The company declined to provide public metrics, but its founders say early enterprise customers reported measurable lift in lead volume after piloting the service.

SIG and Lightspeed, both active investors in enterprise software and AI, led the round, which brings fresh capital to a crowded market for sales intelligence. The $9 million seed will help Gushwork scale engineering, expand integrations with third-party AI search providers and commercialize features aimed at revenue teams. For buyers of sales technology, the shift offers a potential operational impact: sales development representatives and revenue operations staff may spend less time on list building and more time on qualification and closing.

The move underscores a broader industry retooling in which tools that began as conversational assistants are being repurposed for operational search and data work. Startups and established vendors alike are embedding generative search into workflows to extract buyer intent from news, job postings, funding announcements and company databases. For revenue leaders, the appeal is straightforward: more timely, contextual lead signals can shorten the time between an intent signal and first contact.

But that promise raises familiar compliance and accuracy challenges. AI-driven lead discovery depends on the quality of indexed sources, the freshness of data and adherence to privacy rules such as opt-out lists and regional data protections. Companies deploying such systems must confront the risk of false positives, misattributed intent and automated contact that crosses regulatory boundaries. Gushwork’s model will face scrutiny from legal teams and compliance officers tasked with translating conversational AI outputs into lawful outreach.

The financial impact will be decided in deployment. If Gushwork’s integrations consistently deliver higher conversion rates per outreach, sales organizations could reallocate budget from list vendors to AI search services and change hiring priorities on revenue teams. If accuracy and compliance problems persist, procurement may favor established list providers with stronger data governance.

Gushwork’s raise highlights how venture capital is following usage patterns from consumer-facing AI to enterprise automation. By tying seed funding to concrete customer traction with ChatGPT-style search, the company is betting that operational gains — faster lead discovery, tighter qualification and shorter sales cycles — will convert pilot interest into recurring revenue. The next test will be whether those pilots scale without creating new privacy or accuracy liabilities for the companies that adopt them.