Philippe Mizrahi (Linkup) : Building the Web Search Layer for AI Agents 🔍

About this episode

Philippe Mizrahi discusses the journey of building Linkup, a startup focused on creating a web search layer for AI agents.

Philippe Mizrahi is the CEO and Co-Founder of Linkup, a Paris-based startup building the web search layer for the AI era. Previously a Group Product Manager at Lyft, Mizrahi co-founded Linkup in 2024 alongside Denis Charrier, whose prior company Niland — one of Europe's first vector search engines — was acquired by Spotify, and Boris Toledano (ex-McKinsey). The company has raised over $10M in funding, including a seed round led by Gradient, and is backed by Seedcamp, Motier Ventures, and angel investors including founders from Mistral, Datadog, and Deel. Linkup's API powers AI agents at enterprise clients including KPMG, and holds state-of-the-art results on OpenAI's SimpleQA benchmark. AGENDA: • 00:00:55 - Phil Mizrahi and the bet that became Linkup • 00:04:07 - Why Linkup's original vision was wrong • 00:07:00 - The MVP mistake most founders never catch • 00:10:05 - Fundraise or bootstrap: what Linkup chose and why • 00:13:08 - What Phil looks for in a founding team • 00:15:50 - Why Linkup wins in a crowded AI market • 00:19:07 - How Linkup got its first customers • 00:21:55 - The market bet Linkup is building toward • 00:36:22 - The pricing psychology behind Linkup's strategy…

People in this episode

Hosts: Jonathan Yana, Matteo David, Gary Rouch

Guest: Philippe Mizrahi

Topics covered

• AI technology
• startup growth
• entrepreneurship
• fundraising
• market strategy
• customer acquisition

Keywords

• Linkup
• AI agents
• fundraising
• startup strategy
• customer acquisition
• MVP mistakes
• global team management

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Linkup, Lyft, Spotify, Seedcamp, Motier Ventures, KPMG, OpenAI, Mistral, Datadog, Deel

More episodes of Zero to One

• Olivier Toubia (Columbia): How to Differentiate Yourself in the AI Era 🎯 · May 24, 2026 · 32 min
• Zero to One in Enterprise AI: The Hard Truths No One Tells You with Ankur Patel (Multimodal) · November 16, 2025 · 52 min
• Inside Augment: The Business School Taught by Founders, Not Professors · September 30, 2025 · 50 min
• Andrew Parker (Papa): Turning Companionship into a $240M Healthtech Platform Across 7,000 Cities · August 27, 2025 · 56 min
• Amos Bar-Joseph (Swan) : Scaling to $10M ARR per employee with AI Agents · July 28, 2025 · 54 min
• Anis Bennaceur (Attention) - Raising $17M to reinvent B2B Sales with AI 🦄 · July 10, 2025 · 56 min