Search engine and API built for AI agents
Exa builds a web search index and API designed for LLMs and agents rather than human browsing, plus Websets for high-compute research queries. It raised an $85M Series B led by Benchmark in September 2025 and a $250M Series C led by Andreessen Horowitz in May 2026 at a $2.2B valuation.
Exa was founded in 2021 by Will Bryk and is based in San Francisco.
The most recent disclosed round was a Series C of $250M, announced 20 May 2026. Investors on record include Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Y Combinator and NVentures.
Direct and adjacent competitors tracked in the Atlas.
Search API for LLM agents
Tavily provides an API-first search engine that returns pre-scraped, pre-ranked text chunks with citations for AI agents. It raised a $5M seed in July 2024 and a $20M Series A led by Insight Partners and Alpha Wave Global in August 2025, and was acquired by Nebius Group for a reported $275M in February 2026.
Independent search index and search API
Brave Search, part of Brave Software, runs its own web index and sells a Search API that is used as a source by several AI answer engines and metasearch products. Brave Software is privately held and its search unit is not separately funded.