UPDATE 2-US enterprise AI search startup Glean raises $200 mln, plans hiring spree

(Adds context on what AI models Glean uses in paragraph 5)

By Krystal Hu

Feb 27 (Reuters) - Glean, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to help companies search their own knowledge base, has raised $200 million in its latest funding round, signaling strong investor interest in startups that see popular demand for their AI-powered products.

The funding, co-led by existing investors Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners, valued Glean at $2.2 billion, up from the $1 billion it was valued at when it last raised in May 2022.

Arvind Jain, co-founder and CEO of Glean, who also co-founded data management startup Rubrik, said he plans to use the funding to double the team to 700 people this year.

Founded by former Google search engineers in 2019, Glean offers enterprises search and knowledge management solutions by connecting companies' applications and databases.

The company has built conversational AI assistants and used large language models, including OpenAI's GPT models that power the popular ChatGPT, to generate personalized summaries and answers based on a company's internal knowledge graph.

The Palo Alto, California-based startup said it has nearly quadrupled its annual recurring revenue in the past year, serving customers such as Sony Electronics and Databricks.

"Every CIO is trying to figure out the enterprise use cases of generative AI. Glean was built with data safety and governance in mind. When they layered on large language models, the adoption has really accelerated," said Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins who led the investment. (Reporting by Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Kim Coghill, Janane Venkatraman and Daniel Wallis)