Keenable, backed by accel, aims to build ai-focused web index

A new startup, Keenable, backed by Accel, has emerged with the goal of creating a web index tailored for AI agents. The company recently secured $26 million in seed funding, led by Accel, with participation from Conviction Partners and several business angels. The startup, founded by Andrey Styskin, a former leader of Yandex’s search, AI, and cloud division, and German AI scientist Matthias Petri, is developing a search index containing over 100 billion documents. Keenable’s API is already in use by several AI labs and inference providers during both training and runtime. Styskin emphasized that AI chatbots perform better when grounded in source documents, creating a new flywheel distinct from Google’s human-centric model. The startup has also partnered with Gradium, a voice AI company, to support live information retrieval. Styskin highlighted the need for fine-tuned index structures to manage the vast volume of web data efficiently, noting that traditional enterprise search solutions are costly at web scale. Accel partner Zhenya Loginov noted that major tech companies are limiting their search API offerings, creating an opportunity for startups like Keenable. Styskin, who previously worked on web search infrastructure for AI applications at Amazon, observed that AI crawlers are increasingly responsible for a significant share of search traffic. Keenable is also developing proprietary retrieval capabilities, including an upcoming product called Web Query Language, which will help AI systems combine information from various sources. Styskin acknowledged the high costs of building a large search index, calling it 'painfully expensive,' but stated the startup is working to keep costs manageable. With a team of 15 engineers across the U.S. and Europe, Keenable plans to double its headcount by year-end to accelerate its go-to-market strategy. While the startup aims to become 'the next Google for AI agents,' it faces competition from companies like Brave and Exa, as well as Google’s own efforts to overhaul its search experience for the AI era. The broader trend suggests that the era of the 'ten blue links' may be ending, whether for humans or AI agents.