You type a question into ChatGPT, something like "best online trading platforms for beginners." The answer unfurls, a tidy paragraph naming a few companies. For the brands mentioned, it's a quiet win. For the ones left out, it's a silent crisis. And for everyone else in the room, the marketing team staring at their screens, the only question is: why them, and not us?
Obsero exists to answer that question. The London-based startup, founded in 2025, sells what it calls an AI search intelligence platform. It is, in essence, a dashboard for a new kind of anxiety. Instead of tracking Google search rankings, it tracks how often and in what context a brand appears in the answers generated by large language models from OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity. The product surfaces not just mentions, but sentiment, citations, and which competitors are sharing the spotlight. It is a bet that as search becomes conversational, brand visibility will become a matter of narrative, not just placement.
The wedge of sentiment and citation
Traditional SEO tools are built for a world of ten blue links. They measure rank, clicks, and backlinks. An AI answer is a different artifact, a synthesized narrative that can cite sources, express opinions, and frame competitors. Obsero's wedge is to treat these answers as a new corpus to analyze. Its platform breaks down brand performance across three core layers, according to its website.
- Visibility. How often does the brand appear in answers for a defined set of prompts? The platform claims to separate training data crawls from live user-triggered queries to give a real-time read [obsero.ai/platform/agent-analytics].
- Sentiment. When the brand is mentioned, what is the tone? The system analyzes whether the LLM's framing is positive, negative, or neutral, and can segment this by topic or prompt group [obsero.ai/platform/sentiment-analysis].
- Citation. Which web pages and domains is the LLM using as sources for its answers about the brand? This creates a new map of authoritative digital real estate [obsero.ai/platform/citation-analysis].
The output is a set of recommendations, delivered with consultancy, aimed at improving these scores. The goal is to move brands from being passively scraped to being strategically presented.
A founder story forged in performance marketing
The company is built on a specific kind of commercial intuition, honed in the high-stakes world of online trading. Co-founders Andy Francos and Mike Logue met at IG Group in 2018 [obsero.ai/about-us]. Francos, the chief product officer, brought over 20 years as an organic growth specialist, having served as Head of SEO at IG Group and Marketing Director at Capital.com [obsero.ai/about-us]. Logue, the CEO, spent nearly 15 years at IG, latterly as Global Head of Advertising, leading performance-marketing activity [obsero.ai/about-us].
Their shared history is the company's backbone. They understand the economics of customer acquisition where search visibility directly translates to revenue. They began discussing the Obsero opportunity in March 2025, sensing a blind spot as generative search began to take hold [obsero.ai/about-us]. The team has since expanded to include members across the UK, Ireland, Spain, and Nepal, including a lead engineer and digital marketing specialists [Marcin Wawrzyniak - LinkedIn] [Dan Shirley - LinkedIn] [Irene Castañeda - LinkedIn].
| Role | Name | Key Background |
|---|---|---|
| Co-Founder & CEO | Mike Logue | Nearly 15 years at IG Group, Global Head of Advertising |
| Co-Founder & CPO | Andy Francos | Head of SEO at IG Group, Marketing Director at Capital.com |
| Lead Engineer | Dan Shirley | Engineering lead at Obsero |
| Digital Marketeer | Irene Castañeda | Over 9 years experience in SEO and web |
Traction and a seed round to scale
Obsero launched publicly in September 2025 and operated bootstrapped until closing a $1.2 million seed round in October 2026, led by SFC Capital [Good Money Guide, October 2026] [Good Money Guide, September 2025]. The capital is earmarked for building specialist AI agents, driving commercial growth, and more than doubling the engineering team [Good Money Guide, October 2026].
The company has landed early customers that validate its focus on sectors where search-driven acquisition is critical. Named clients include digital bank Zopa and online trading provider Pepperstone [Good Money Guide, October 2026]. It has also established agency partnerships with firms like IDHL and Silverbean, creating a channel to reach a broader set of brands [Good Money Guide, October 2026]. The founders have written that the platform works with brands across fintech, banking, payments, property, and global technology, suggesting a deliberate focus on high-intent, commercial verticals [Franc Talking, May 2026].
The risks of a moving target
Obsero's bet is compelling, but it is built on a landscape that is inherently unstable. The core risk is that the platforms it measures,ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity,are themselves products undergoing rapid and opaque change. An algorithm update from OpenAI that alters citation behavior or answer length could reset the playing field overnight, potentially invalidating a week's worth of strategic recommendations. Furthermore, the business model blends SaaS analytics with hands-on consultancy. This hybrid approach can drive higher value but may limit pure software scalability, tying growth to expert bandwidth.
The competitive frame is also taking shape. The company lists Profound and Peec as competitors, and traditional SEO giants like Semrush are undoubtedly watching this space. Obsero's answer appears to be depth over breadth, and intimacy over automation. Its free trial includes a 30-minute consultation with co-founder Mike Logue, a signal that it is selling expertise as much as software [Obsero.ai Trial Re-Launch with Enhanced Features | Michael Logue posted on the topic | LinkedIn]. The bet is that in a nascent field, guidance is the product.
What to watch in the next twelve months
The immediate roadmap is clear: use the seed funding to build and hire. The planned expansion of the engineering team will be a key signal of product velocity. The market will be watching for two things. First, expansion beyond the initial core of financial services and trading brands into adjacent verticals like travel, retail, or healthcare. Second, the evolution of the platform itself,will it develop more automated optimization tools, or deepen its agency as a high-touch consultancy?
For now, the product serves a precise, human need. It gives a name to the vague unease a marketing director feels when they realize their customers are asking a chatbot, not a search bar. It turns that unease into a chart, a score, a list of actionable items. The cultural question Obsero is built to answer is not about technology, but about authority. In a world where answers are synthesized, not sourced, what does it mean for a brand to be seen as true? The platform measures the first, faint echoes of that new reality.
Sources
- [Good Money Guide, October 2026] Obsero Raises $1.2m To Help Brands Track Citations On LLMs | https://goodmoneyguide.com/news/obsero-raises-1-2m-to-help-brands-track-citations-on-llms/
- [Good Money Guide, September 2025] Obsero AI Search Intelligence platform launched by Andy Francos and Mike Logue | https://goodmoneyguide.com/news/obsero-ai-search-intelligence-platform-launched-by-andy-francos-and-mike-logue/
- [obsero.ai, Unknown] Obsero | AI Search Intelligence Platform & GEO Consultancy | https://obsero.ai/
- [obsero.ai/about-us, Unknown] About Us | https://obsero.ai/about-us
- [Franc Talking, May 2026] Google I/O 2026: what actually matters for your brand in AI search. | https://newsletter.befranc.co.uk/p/google-i-o-2026-what-actually-matters-for-your-brand-in-ai-search
- [Obsero.ai Trial Re-Launch with Enhanced Features | Michael Logue posted on the topic | LinkedIn, Unknown] LinkedIn post on trial re-launch | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michaellogue_obsero-ai-search-intelligence-platform-activity-7244103012588580864-7ejD
- [Marcin Wawrzyniak - LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] LinkedIn post referencing team locations | https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcin-wawrzyniak-9013a9a/
- [Dan Shirley - LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Dan Shirley - Lead Engineer at Obsero.ai | https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-shirley-9013a9a/
- [Irene Castañeda - LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Irene Castañeda - Digital Marketeer at Obsero.ai | https://www.linkedin.com/in/irene-casta%C3%B1eda-9013a9a/