Azoma Raises $11.2M to Track Products in AI Shopping Agents

Azoma, a startup that tracks how AI shopping assistants pick products, has raised an $11.2 million Series A led by Puma Growth Partners.

Why should you care? Azoma sells brands software to track and influence how AI shopping tools show their products.

Dunnhumby, Twin Path, MaRS IAF, Rank Ventures and Ignite Ventures joined, with angels from Google DeepMind and Legora.

What Azoma actually sells

Azoma calls it “Agentic Commerce Optimization”, or ACO.

It sits close to the GEO and AEO work you may already do for your content, but ACO chases product picks and the path to a purchase rather than general AI-generated responses.

So the software measures where your products show up across three kinds of tools:

• AI apps like ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Google AI Overviews
• retailer assistants such as Alexa for Shopping, Walmart’s Sparky and Instacart’s Clementine
• personal AI agents

Sinclair says Instinct launched in August and already accounts for $1 billion in transactions, though I found no outside confirmation.

Its digital twin system simulates different AI shopper personas, so a brand can assess how products are shown to a specific buyer type.

Max Sinclair, a former Amazon executive, founded it in 2022 with Timur Luguev, a machine learning researcher, and IT Brief UK reports it now has offices in London and Toronto.

Customers include L’Oréal, Unilever, Mars, Beiersdorf and Reckitt.

The numbers, and whose they are

Azoma says revenue grew almost tenfold in a year. Staff went from 12 to 40. Of course, nobody outside the company has checked either figure.

Its research is more useful to you, because an analysis of 38 million citations, as Pulse reported, shows each engine leaning on very different sites.

• Editorial content was more than half of what Google Gemini cited.
• In Google AI Overviews, the same kind of content was under 8%.
• Affiliate content was about 40% of the citations in Alexa for Shopping, and under 2% on every other engine Azoma measured.

Run a review site? Then you should watch that Alexa number closely.

Dunnhumby, the Tesco-owned data company, backed Azoma in September. The Grocer reported then that earned and social media made up 86.5% of the citations behind Alexa for Shopping, and 76% of those behind Walmart’s Sparky, citing Azoma’s own analysis.

Azoma plans to use the funding to expand its platform for AI personal assistants and shopping agents, build attribution tools on dunnhumby’s data, and hire, with a focus on AI specialists, IT Brief UK reports.

Why it matters

Each engine reads different sources.

So one “AI visibility” score for your brand hides more than it shows, because a page that helps you in Google Gemini may do nothing for you in Alexa for Shopping, and the reverse.

If you run a product brand, find out which assistant your buyers use before you pay for your own dashboard.

Publish reviews on your site? The Alexa figure says affiliate content still gets read by at least one big shopping agent.

Still, I’d keep the hype at arm’s length. Sinclair says this will be “more transformational than the internet” for his customers. Founders say that kind of thing during a raise.

Here’s my check for you this week:

• Ask ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Google AI Overviews to recommend a product in your category, typed the way your buyer would type it.
• Then look at which sites they cite, and whether yours is one of them.

That’s the free version of what Azoma sells. You’ll see if you’re in the answer.

Though Azoma builds for enterprise brands, the lesson holds for a small shop too. Your product page isn’t the only page an agent reads.

Common Questions

What is agentic commerce optimization and how is it different from GEO?

ACO is the narrower idea. Agentic commerce optimization is Azoma’s term for getting products recommended by AI shopping assistants and agents. The category overlaps with GEO and AEO, but Azoma says it focuses on product recommendation and purchase pathways rather than general AI-generated responses.

How much did Azoma raise in its Series A and who led the round?

Azoma raised an $11.2 million Series A led by Puma Growth Partners. It follows a $4 million seed round announced in December 2025.

Which AI shopping assistants does Azoma track for brands?

Azoma covers AI apps like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews, retailer assistants such as Alexa for Shopping, Walmart’s Sparky and Instacart’s Clementine, and personal AI agents.