Introducing Athena: The World’s Fastest Generative Engine Optimization Platform

Athena, the world’s fastest generative engine optimization (GEO) platform, today launched from stealth with $2.2 million to help companies of all sizes secure top placement in AI-powered search. The round was from Y Combinator, FCVC, Red Bike Capital, Amino Capital, and top SEO and search executives including Eli Schwartz and Ashley Stirrup.The company plans to use the funding to scale its GEO platform and roll out new tools for SaaS and ecommerce brands as AI-powered shopping increases in popularity.

The Opportunity: $80B+ SEO Market Being Disrupted Overnight

For the last two decades, marketers and brands have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into SEO tactics trying to rank at the top of Google. This $80B industry is rapidly becoming obsolete as consumers and companies are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for their search, shopping, and other needs. Meanwhile, GEO remains a wide-open frontier, with untapped billions in brand value and sales that will be taken by the first movers who learn to optimize for conversational and agentic search, as shown by a recent Forrester study finding 90% of B2B buyers have adopted generative AI.

“LLM-Search has been the hidden growth lever for AutoRFP.ai. Over 30% of inbound leads research with ChatGPT before booking a demo. Athena gives us the power to influence that research by identifying new prompts and content opportunities.” said Robert Dickson, Head of Operations at AutoRFP.ai

Athena’s Solution: Rapid and Actionable GEO for Brands of All Sizes

Athena has built its platform to be the fastest and most actionable GEO platform on the market. To do this, it built a catalog of over 3 million real-world AI responses and continuously maps them to more than 300,000 unique sites that LLMs cite from. Its platform then recommends the exact website configuration changes or content needed across text, image, or video to rank higher in AI-search results. The platform is already being used by more than 80 companies including Coupons.com, Checkr, Artisan, Ollie, and other companies.

Athena was created by Andrew Yan and Alan Yao, two search and AI engineers. Yan previously worked at Google Search where he worked on the information acquisition team giving him a deep understanding of the technical and commercial aspects of the industry. Yao previously worked at ServiceNow building AI products and has been building on OpenAI’s platform since 2020, well before ChatGPT launched. They put together a team of builders, investors, and advisors from OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind, and other leading organizations.

“AI is driving a seismic shift in how people find information,” said Eli Schwartz, a leading SEO advisor and angel investor in Athena. “Over the next decade, AI search will unlock billions in B2B and consumer spending, and Athena’s platform gives brands the precision and speed they need to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

“ChatGPT and AI Overviews are massively disrupting organic web traffic,” said Ashley Stirrup, former CMO of Talend and $2B+ search company Algolia. “This makes AthenaHQ crucial for understanding this new platform shift, the prompts that are most important to customers, and how to grow their share of voice on what will soon be their biggest source of new customers.”

To learn more and try Athena for yourself, please visit https://athenahq.ai/

About Athena

Athena is the world’s fastest Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform. By continuously analyzing over 3 million real-world AI responses and mapping them to more than 300,000 citation sites, Athena delivers automated, actionable recommendations to optimize brand visibility in AI chat. Backed by Y Combinator, FCVC, Redbike Capital, Amino Capital, and SEO and search leaders, Athena helps brands of all sizes increase their AI-search traffic by 10x. Learn more at www.athenahq.ai.

Contact Information

Riley Munks

PR Advisor

Activate PR - https://www.activate-pr.com/

riley@activate-pr.com