This You.com company profile covers the company's valuation, revenue, funding rounds, investors and history. You.com works in artificial intelligence, with a focus on AI search and APIs. It was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. Its latest valuation on record is US$1.5 billion (September 2025). Every figure links to a public source, and anything the company hasn't disclosed is marked as such.
Revenue
| Metric | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| API usage | More than one billion queries a month through its API (as reported) | September 2025 | Unite.AI |
Funding history
| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | Series C | US$100M | US$1.5B | Cox Enterprises (lead); Georgian, Salesforce Ventures, Norwest | You.com (company announcement) |
You.com timeline
Key dates from the sources on this page, oldest first. Metric snapshots are listed after the funding events.
- 2020 — You.com is founded in Palo Alto by Richard Socher (CEO) and Bryan McCann.
- Sep 2025 — Series C: US$100M, valuing the company at US$1.5B. Investors: Cox Enterprises (lead); Georgian, Salesforce Ventures, Norwest.
- September 2025 — API usage: More than one billion queries a month through its API (as reported).
Investors
Overview
You.com started as an AI-powered search engine for consumers and has repositioned itself as a provider of search and research infrastructure for AI applications and agents. Its APIs let developers and enterprises give their AI systems access to accurate, up-to-date information from the web, with citations, and to run deeper research tasks. As AI agents increasingly need live information to act, demand for search built for machines rather than people has grown. In September 2025 You.com raised a US$100 million Series C led by Cox Enterprises at a US$1.5 billion valuation, becoming a unicorn.
Richard Socher, the CEO, and Bryan McCann founded You.com in 2020 in Palo Alto. Socher is a well-known AI researcher who previously founded MetaMind, acquired by Salesforce, and served as Salesforce's chief scientist. McCann was a research scientist at Salesforce. They launched You.com as a privacy-focused, AI-assisted alternative to Google before ChatGPT made AI search mainstream.
Products
- Search API: real-time web search results optimised for AI models and agents.
- Research API: multi-step research that compiles information from many sources with citations.
- Enterprise platform: AI assistants and agents for companies, connected to web and internal data.
- Consumer app: AI search and chat with access to multiple models.
Funding
You.com raised early funding from investors including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Georgian, Salesforce Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners. In September 2025 it announced a US$100 million Series C led by Cox Enterprises, with existing backers Georgian, Salesforce Ventures and Norwest participating, at a US$1.5 billion valuation. David Yang of Cox's Socium Ventures joined the board. Coverage said the money would allow it to roughly double its workforce from about 100 to 200 people and open a San Francisco office.
Business model
You.com earns revenue mainly from API usage, charging developers and enterprises per query or through committed contracts, and from enterprise subscriptions. Its shift from consumer search, which depends on advertising or subscriptions in a market dominated by Google, to infrastructure sold to businesses gives it a clearer revenue model.
Competition
You.com competes with AI search APIs from Exa, Tavily, Brave, Perplexity's Sonar and Google; with enterprise AI assistants such as Glean; and in consumer search with Google, Microsoft Bing, Perplexity and ChatGPT search. Its strengths are years of search infrastructure work and accuracy-focused research features.
You.com at a glance
You.com is a Palo Alto AI search company founded in 2020 by Richard Socher and Bryan McCann. It provides search and research APIs for AI agents and enterprise AI tools. It raised a US$100 million Series C in September 2025 led by Cox Enterprises at a US$1.5 billion valuation.
Timeline
- 2020: founded.
- 2021: launches its consumer search engine.
- 2022–2023: adds AI chat and multi-model features.
- 2024–2025: focuses on APIs and enterprise products.
- September 2025: raises US$100 million at US$1.5 billion.
Why AI agents need search
Language models are trained on data up to a certain date and can make up facts. To answer questions about current events, prices or specific companies, and to take actions based on accurate information, AI applications need to look things up. Traditional search engines are designed for humans clicking links; AI agents need clean, structured, relevant content delivered quickly, with sources they can cite. Search APIs designed for AI fill this gap and have become essential infrastructure as agents proliferate.
Who funds You.com
You.com's investors include Cox Enterprises, which led its Series C, Georgian, Salesforce Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Marc Benioff.
Who uses You.com
You.com's customers include AI application developers, enterprises building agents, and consumers using its app.
Valuation context
You.com joined the unicorn ranks as investors focused on AI infrastructure. Our guide to the most valuable AI startups compares it with peers.
Risks
- Competition: many search API providers and large search companies.
- Data access: web publishers increasingly restrict crawling or seek payment.
- Pricing pressure: commoditisation of search APIs could reduce margins.
Questions for developers
- How accurate and fresh are results for your use case?
- What are latency and pricing per query?
- How are sources cited and licensed?
How the business shifted
You.com launched as a consumer search engine competing with Google, offering privacy and AI features. Competing for consumer search share is extremely difficult, and the arrival of ChatGPT and Perplexity intensified competition for AI-powered answers. Meanwhile, You.com had built infrastructure for crawling, indexing and retrieving web content and combining it with language models. Developers building AI applications needed exactly that capability without building it themselves. By selling APIs and enterprise products, You.com turned its infrastructure into a business-to-business offering with clearer revenue. The company continues to offer a consumer app, but its growth strategy centres on enterprises and developers.
Content licensing is an important issue for AI search: publishers increasingly want compensation when their content is used by AI systems, and search providers must navigate these relationships.
Enterprise and consumer users
Enterprise customers include companies building AI assistants for employees, financial and research firms that need cited, current information, and developers building agents that browse and summarise the web. Consumers continue to use its app for AI-assisted search and chat with multiple models.
Developers often test several search APIs side by side, measuring answer accuracy, latency and cost on their own queries before choosing a provider.
Investor backgrounds
Cox Enterprises, the family-owned media and automotive services company, led the Series C through its venture arm, signalling interest from a traditional media group in AI search. Salesforce Ventures and Marc Benioff have backed the company since its early days, reflecting Socher's history at Salesforce, while Georgian and Norwest are growth investors with software expertise.
For enterprise buyers, the key questions are accuracy on their domain, how results are cited and whether usage terms allow the content to be stored or reused inside their applications.
Latest developments (October 2026)
You.com's September 2025 Series C of US$100 million at US$1.5 billion remains its latest round. The company has refocused from consumer search to selling search and research APIs that AI agents use to find current information, competing with providers such as Exa and Perplexity's API. See our most valuable AI startups guide.
What to watch
Watch API growth, enterprise customers, publisher licensing and new funding.
Takeaways
AI developers can give agents access to current information. Founders can see how a consumer product can pivot to infrastructure. Investors should watch competition in AI search.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.
Frequently asked questions
What does You.com do?
You.com is a artificial intelligence / ai search and apis company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. It was founded in 2020.
What is You.com's valuation?
You.com was valued at US$1.5 billion as of September 2025, according to You.com (company announcement). Private company valuations are set at funding rounds or share sales and can change significantly between them.
How much revenue does You.com make?
You.com is a private company and has not publicly disclosed its revenue. Figures on third-party sites are usually modelled estimates rather than numbers reported by the company.
What was You.com's latest funding round?
The most recent financing we have verified is a series c in Sep 2025: US$100M, at a valuation of US$1.5B. Source: You.com (company announcement).
Who are You.com's investors?
Investors named in public announcements include Cox Enterprises, Georgian, Salesforce Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Marc Benioff.
Who founded You.com?
You.com was founded in 2020 by Richard Socher (CEO) and Bryan McCann.
Is You.com a public company?
No. You.com is a private company (private, venture backed), so its shares are not traded on a stock exchange and it isn't required to publish its financial results.
Where is You.com headquartered?
You.com is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States.