Seltz Secures $12.5M to Revolutionize Web Search for AI Agents
June 30, 2026, 3:52 pm
Seltz Inc. raised $12.5 million in seed funding. The capital fuels its mission to build specialized web search infrastructure for AI agents. Existing search engines, designed for humans, hinder AI's unique demands. Seltz provides a full-stack solution. It delivers structured evidence, full documents, and deep context. This empowers AI algorithms to run complex, parallel queries efficiently. Founder Antonio Mallia, an experienced Amazon AI scientist, leads Seltz. The company plans to scale its proprietary index to tens of billions of documents. This addresses a critical efficiency gap in enterprise AI workflows. Seltz leverages a team of information retrieval PhDs. It is already engaged in commercial pilots, challenging larger, well-funded competitors in the agentic search domain.
Seltz Inc. secured $12.5 million in a recent seed funding round. The investment targets a critical emerging need. Artificial intelligence agents demand a new type of web search. Traditional search engines fall short. They were built for human users. Seltz offers a dedicated infrastructure.
Speedinvest and B Capital led the funding. Additional investors included Italian Founders Fund, Future Back Ventures, futurepresent, Arc Investors, Vento Ventures, Mango Capital, 2100 Ventures, and United Ventures. Angel investors from Google, Hugging Face, Ramp Network, and Tako also participated. The capital empowers Seltz to scale its unique platform. It aims to optimize search for AI.
Antonio Mallia founded Seltz. He serves as CEO. Mallia identified a significant problem. AI agents search differently than humans. Agents issue long, detailed queries. They run many searches simultaneously. They require comprehensive context. Current search platforms do not cater to these needs. Most return lists of links. AI needs structured evidence.
Mallia brings extensive search expertise. He studied information retrieval at the University of Pisa. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from New York University. Mallia previously worked on Amazon's artificial general intelligence team. He contributed to Alexa's question answering engine. He also served as a research scientist at Pinecone Systems. This background shaped his vision. He realized the search consumer was no longer human. It was a machine.
Seltz built its entire search stack from the ground up. This includes crawlers, indexes, retrieval models, and ranking systems. Many other search startups route queries through existing major providers. Seltz chose an independent path. This full-stack approach is capital-intensive. It is crucial for specialized AI search.
The company focuses on providing structured evidence. It extracts exact text, tables, or images. This direct data is vital for AI agents. It reduces extra retrieval steps. It improves token efficiency for large language models. Seltz’s own index offers different documents than Google-based systems. This provides broader coverage for AI agents.
Seltz also develops specialized indexes. These are tailored for specific categories. Each vertical is optimized. It matches the information structure being searched. This granular approach enhances relevance and accuracy. The platform supports flexible deployment. Customers can use their own infrastructure. Private cloud or specific data regions are also options. Seltz is SOC 2 Type II compliant. This ensures security and reliability.
The company launched its platform quickly. Seltz shipped a news index within eight months. It demonstrated strong performance on its Dynamic News Search Benchmark. The system achieved 89% accuracy. It returned results in under 250 milliseconds. Independent assessments noted even faster response times. Fortune reported results under 200 milliseconds. Seltz reportedly crawls hundreds of millions of pages daily. The goal is to scale to tens of billions of documents.
The new funding fuels Seltz's growth. It will invest heavily in engineering. The company plans to expand its team. It will launch enterprise sales efforts. Seltz targets companies building agentic workflows. It currently has a foundational lab under contract. Multiple pilots are underway with early adopters.
The agentic search market is growing rapidly. Seltz faces stiff competition. Parallel Web Systems Inc., led by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, recently raised $100 million. Exa Labs Inc. secured $250 million last month. Data center giant Nebius Group N.V. acquired Tavily Inc. This landscape highlights the sector's strategic importance.
Seltz is a smaller player in terms of funding and team size. It currently has 15 staff members. Only half work full-time. However, the team boasts significant expertise. Many hold Ph.D.s in information retrieval. Others previously worked with Mallia on Amazon's AI research teams. This deep academic and industry experience is a core asset.
The company addresses a fundamental challenge. Current search methods hinder AI development. They waste computational resources. They limit AI's ability to gather comprehensive, structured information. Seltz aims to unlock new capabilities for AI agents. Its specialized infrastructure could become a cornerstone for future AI applications. It could accelerate the deployment of intelligent autonomous systems across industries. Seltz is building the unseen backbone for the next generation of AI.
Seltz Inc. secured $12.5 million in a recent seed funding round. The investment targets a critical emerging need. Artificial intelligence agents demand a new type of web search. Traditional search engines fall short. They were built for human users. Seltz offers a dedicated infrastructure.
Speedinvest and B Capital led the funding. Additional investors included Italian Founders Fund, Future Back Ventures, futurepresent, Arc Investors, Vento Ventures, Mango Capital, 2100 Ventures, and United Ventures. Angel investors from Google, Hugging Face, Ramp Network, and Tako also participated. The capital empowers Seltz to scale its unique platform. It aims to optimize search for AI.
Antonio Mallia founded Seltz. He serves as CEO. Mallia identified a significant problem. AI agents search differently than humans. Agents issue long, detailed queries. They run many searches simultaneously. They require comprehensive context. Current search platforms do not cater to these needs. Most return lists of links. AI needs structured evidence.
Mallia brings extensive search expertise. He studied information retrieval at the University of Pisa. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from New York University. Mallia previously worked on Amazon's artificial general intelligence team. He contributed to Alexa's question answering engine. He also served as a research scientist at Pinecone Systems. This background shaped his vision. He realized the search consumer was no longer human. It was a machine.
Seltz built its entire search stack from the ground up. This includes crawlers, indexes, retrieval models, and ranking systems. Many other search startups route queries through existing major providers. Seltz chose an independent path. This full-stack approach is capital-intensive. It is crucial for specialized AI search.
The company focuses on providing structured evidence. It extracts exact text, tables, or images. This direct data is vital for AI agents. It reduces extra retrieval steps. It improves token efficiency for large language models. Seltz’s own index offers different documents than Google-based systems. This provides broader coverage for AI agents.
Seltz also develops specialized indexes. These are tailored for specific categories. Each vertical is optimized. It matches the information structure being searched. This granular approach enhances relevance and accuracy. The platform supports flexible deployment. Customers can use their own infrastructure. Private cloud or specific data regions are also options. Seltz is SOC 2 Type II compliant. This ensures security and reliability.
The company launched its platform quickly. Seltz shipped a news index within eight months. It demonstrated strong performance on its Dynamic News Search Benchmark. The system achieved 89% accuracy. It returned results in under 250 milliseconds. Independent assessments noted even faster response times. Fortune reported results under 200 milliseconds. Seltz reportedly crawls hundreds of millions of pages daily. The goal is to scale to tens of billions of documents.
The new funding fuels Seltz's growth. It will invest heavily in engineering. The company plans to expand its team. It will launch enterprise sales efforts. Seltz targets companies building agentic workflows. It currently has a foundational lab under contract. Multiple pilots are underway with early adopters.
The agentic search market is growing rapidly. Seltz faces stiff competition. Parallel Web Systems Inc., led by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, recently raised $100 million. Exa Labs Inc. secured $250 million last month. Data center giant Nebius Group N.V. acquired Tavily Inc. This landscape highlights the sector's strategic importance.
Seltz is a smaller player in terms of funding and team size. It currently has 15 staff members. Only half work full-time. However, the team boasts significant expertise. Many hold Ph.D.s in information retrieval. Others previously worked with Mallia on Amazon's AI research teams. This deep academic and industry experience is a core asset.
The company addresses a fundamental challenge. Current search methods hinder AI development. They waste computational resources. They limit AI's ability to gather comprehensive, structured information. Seltz aims to unlock new capabilities for AI agents. Its specialized infrastructure could become a cornerstone for future AI applications. It could accelerate the deployment of intelligent autonomous systems across industries. Seltz is building the unseen backbone for the next generation of AI.