Accel-backed Keenable raises $26 million to build AI-focused web index

Keenable, launched by Andrey Styskin—formerly head of Yandex’s search, AI and cloud division—and German AI scientist Matthias Petri, announced a $26 million seed round led by Accel, joined by Conviction Partners and angel investors. The company is constructing a web index comprising more than 100 billion documents, designed to let AI agents ground their answers in verifiable sources. Its API is already deployed in production at several AI research labs and inference providers, and a recent partnership with voice-AI startup Gradium adds live information-retrieval capabilities.

Styskin argues that traditional search engines, built for human users, are inefficient for AI workloads, making cost-effective, task-specific indexing essential. Accel partner Zhenya Loginov noted that major cloud players are limiting access to their search APIs, creating a market gap that Keenable seeks to fill. With a 15-person engineering team across the United States and Europe, the startup plans to double its staff by year-end to accelerate its go-to-market efforts.