Linkby bets big on generative engine optimisation with US$15m funding boost

Australian-founded performance PR platform Linkby has become an “accidental” leader in the generative engine optimisation (GEO) space, according to CEO Chris Wirasinha. As the platform celebrates its latest round of funding — US$15 million — he explains the reason GEO is becoming increasingly important to the industry.

Performance PR, as described by Wirasinha, is not only about getting coverage as a brand, but being able to measure it to a performance-focused outcome. Linkby works on a “cost-per-click” model, where it connects brands to publishers to run editorial campaigns, and pay only for the clicks back to their website when readers engage.

The biggest difference from traditional PR, he said, is the ability to properly measure outcomes.

“We don’t see ourselves as in any way replacing the traditional PR model, but definitely giving another weapon for PR agencies to utilise,” he told Mumbrella.

Linkby

The platform has just completed it biggest Series B fundraiser, raising US$15 million (AU$22.9 million) from a Boston-based growth equity firm, Volition Capital. It marks the VC’s first ever Australian investment.

Linkby will use the investment to grow its US go-to-market team, and accelerate product development.

Wirasinha told Mumbrella the US is “by far” Linkby’s biggest market, accounting for around 55% of the company’s revenue.

“The scale of the market really works for the platform,” he said. “I think the business does work really well at scale and that’s something we’ve been able to prove out so we’ll be doubling the size of the US team and really focused on trying to be this lead player in the world of performance PR over there.”

To cater to this market more efficiently, Linkby is looking to create an AI, machine-learning-powered recommendation engine to help brands choose publishers they want to work with and what budget levels they should allocate. According to Wirasinha, this will prevent the inevitable: as the platform grows, brands may face decision fatigue.

More importantly, however, it will use the funding to double down on what Wirasinha sees as one of the biggest changes in publishing — the push towards visibility in LLMs and ChatGPT-based search tools.

“This is a really interesting area where it feels like we’ve accidentally built a platform that sits perfectly in this new world of generative engine optimisation,” he said. “That’s definitely a trend we’ve seen which I think will stick around, because there are more and more searches going into these platforms, so all of a sudden you’re finding brands that have…built their digital content across premium publishers.

“[They] are seeing the benefits because they’ve had a larger amount of content out there that has been searched and indexed, and ingested by the LLMs.”

Linkby’s co-founders. (L-R): Andrew Chak, Chris Wirasinha and Adrian Fagerlund

Wirasinha defined GEO as “SEO but for the new world of LLM-based search”. Search engine optimisation (SEO) has always been focused on “gaming the Google algorithm” or backlinking, while GEO isn’t linked-based at all. GEO instead favours content from premium publishers, regardless of typical algorithms.

“All of a sudden it becomes more about the level of trust and prestige certain pieces of coverage have generated,” he said.

As a result, the GEO space is rapidly growing in importance, especially to the brand-publisher relationship.

Brands are looking to become more visible in these strategies, but can only do that if they connect with the “premium” publishers LLMs utilise. And for publishers, the rise of GEO has posed a risk to usual traffic and pageviews, so embedding their content is paramount.

The “smart” publishers will also start to realise the increased monetisation opportunity from brands this provides, according to Wirasinha.

“We’ve seen a drop in publishers’ traffic that is driven by platforms like Google because of things like AI overview,” he said. “For publishers, it’s this moment where brands all of a sudden need them to be able to help create content, brands need those trusted voices, so the power of content becomes even more important.”

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