BY Venture Partners backs ChatFeatured in $2 million pre-Seed round

UAE-based venture capital firm BY Venture Partners recently joined a $2 million pre-Seed funding round for Canadian AI startup ChatFeatured, alongside Storytime Capital and Garage Capital. The investment aims to fuel the development of AI-powered search optimisation tools. ChatFeatured, founded in 2026 by Farris Nasr and Nithiiyan Skhanthan, offers an Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) platform designed to assist brands in enhancing their visibility on AI-powered search platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

The platform identifies citation gaps, automates content creation, and recommends content improvements to boost AI citations and referral traffic. Within six months of its launch, ChatFeatured has expanded into five markets and witnessed month-on-month growth exceeding 40%. The fresh funding will be allocated towards hiring, accelerating go-to-market strategies, and developing autonomous AI agents that can automatically identify and execute optimisation opportunities, functioning as extensions of marketing teams.

BY Venture Partners sees this investment as a strategic move to back scalable AI startups while fostering connections between international founders and capital, expertise, and networks across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The deal highlights the increasing investor interest in infrastructure companies catering to the burgeoning AI search economy, as businesses prioritize optimising content for AI-generated answers over traditional search engines.