Exa
About Exa
Exa is a AI Infrastructure startup based in San Francisco, United States that has raised $357M in venture capital across 3 funding rounds since 2021. The company reached Series C stage in May 2024 with a $22M round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Exa's investor base includes 5 institutional funds, with Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) leading the most recent equity round.
Exa (formerly Metaphor) is a San Francisco-based AI search company that provides a semantic web search API built for large language models, AI agents, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines. Founded in 2021 by Harvard alumni Will Bryk and Jeff Wang and backed by Y Combinator, Exa converts indexed web pages into high-dimensional vectors and performs nearest-neighbor search to retrieve content by meaning rather than keywords. The platform includes a Search API, Contents API, Answer API, Find Similar API, and Websets product, and is used by more than 5,000 companies and 400,000 developers including Cursor, HubSpot, Cognition, and Monday.com. In May 2026 the company raised a $250M Series C led by Andreessen Horowitz at a $2.2B valuation, more than tripling its $700M valuation from its September 2025 Series B.
Exa Funding Rounds Timeline
3 rounds · $357M raised · since 2021
| Round | Date | Amount | Valuation | Lead investor | Co-investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | May 2024 | $22M | — | Lightspeed Venture Partners | NVIDIA NVentures, Y Combinator |
| Series B | Sep 2025 | $85M | $700M | Benchmark | Lightspeed Venture Partners, Y Combinator, NVIDIA NVentures |
| Series C | May 2026 | $250M | $2.2B | Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) | — |
Investors in Exa
5 institutional investors across 3 rounds
Lead investors
Co-investors
Recent news about Exa
- FundingAI Search Engine Exa Secures $250M, Valued at $2.2BMay 2026
Questions about Exa
How much has Exa raised?
Exa has raised $357M across 3 funding rounds since 2021.
Who are the investors of Exa?
Exa's investors include Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Benchmark, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NVIDIA NVentures, Y Combinator.
When was Exa's last funding round?
Exa's most recent round was a $22M Series A in May 2024, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
What is Exa's valuation?
Exa reached a $2.2B valuation (unicorn status) with its Series A round in May 2024.
Where is Exa headquartered?
Exa is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, and was founded in 2021 by Will Bryk, Jeff Wang.