Funds and Launch for GEO Specialist Yolando

In Toronto, Canada, competitive intelligence and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform Yolando has launched with $US 8.5m in funding.

Yolando helps clients understand and optimize the way they are represented in AI-generated answers, monitoring visibility and competitive positioning across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and other platforms. Its model is trained on millions of web pages to recognize patterns that drive AI citation and recommendation behavior, and its solution includes AI-powered content generation, tailored to the specific brand.

Yolando co-founder and CEO Matt Bogoroch (pictured) also leads marketing software company BirdsEyePost: Yolando grew out of his team's experience seeing the rise of AI in influencing which companies made prospects' shortlists, and finding that existing tools could measure visibility, 'but not help them respond in a meaningful, scalable way.'

'Before a prospect ever visits your website, they've already asked ChatGPT who to trust,' says Bogoroch. 'If you're not in that answer, you're not in the conversation. Yolando makes sure you are.' The two companies remain under the same roof, giving Yolando an advantage, as it will be 'continuously refined inside a high-growth business that's navigating AI-driven buyer behavior every day.'

The platform's recommendation engine identifies new competitor web content, and develops a strategic response and action plan; alerts users when competitors gain visibility on high-intent search terms and prompts; flags any drops in brand sentiment or ranking, and identifies content gaps; and 'generates publish-ready content briefs in one click.'

Co-founder & CTO Shardul Frey adds: 'Traditional AI-generated content often just parrots existing sources, which means it gets ignored by the very models it's trying to influence. We trained our system to identify patterns that actually drive LLM citation behavior, so every piece of content Yolando generates introduces something genuinely new to the conversation.'

Funding came from Drive Capital, and the new company is online at www.yolando.com .