HubSpot has acquired XFunnel, a 10-month-old Israeli startup that builds tools to help marketers adjust to AI-powered search and “answer engines.” This is HubSpot’s first acquisition in Israel.
XFunnel was founded less than a year ago by Beeri Amiel and Neri Bluman. The company was created to solve a new challenge for marketers.
In today’s world, people don’t just search — they ask questions, and AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity give them direct answers. XFunnel helps marketing teams adapt to this big change.
“Marketing is shifting from traditional workflows to AI-native operations,” Bluman wrote on LinkedIn, noting that XFunnel’s early mission was to understand “how marketing actually works in the AI age – not the hype, not the theory.”
Both companies said their relationship started when HubSpot first contacted XFunnel as a potential customer. Over time, this led to an investment and eventually to HubSpot acquiring the startup. The financial terms of the deal were not shared.
HubSpot, which is valued at about $26 billion, said this deal supports its new initiative called Loop Marketing. The program is designed to help businesses attract, engage, and convert customers on AI-powered platforms. The company also mentioned that leads generated through AI convert three times better than those from traditional search.
“People now get answers straight from large language models, and that shift has made Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) essential,” HubSpot said in a blog post. XFunnel’s technology helps brands monitor and improve how they appear in AI-generated responses.
Angela DeFranco, HubSpot’s GM and VP of Product for Marketing Hub, said the acquisition will give marketers better visibility into how their brand appears across AI systems. “As AI changes how people find and engage with businesses, we want to make that shift easier to navigate for our customers,” she said.
In a statement on the XFunnel website, Amiel and Bluman said their partnership with HubSpot is about “building the future of marketing together.” They emphasized that both companies share a focus on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — a new marketing approach that helps brands show up effectively in AI-generated answers.
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