Consensus Raises $11.5M Series A for AI Search Engine Revolutionizing Scientific Research

Consensus, an AI-powered search engine designed to improve access to scientific literature, has announced that it raised $11.5 million in a Series A funding round.

The company’s AI engine is built specifically to filter academic publications, delivering precise results that cater to researchers, students, and casual users searching for scientifically-backed information on personal health and other topics. Consensus’s user base spans diverse fields, including academia, healthcare, and biosciences, with inquiries ranging from complex research questions such as “Review the literature on the relationship between socioeconomic factors and healthcare outcomes in America” to simple consumer-focused queries like “Is the HPV vaccine safe?” The company aims to provide rigorous, peer-reviewed answers in seconds, contrasting with the more general-purpose search engines that dominate today’s market.

“We aim to create a world where expert knowledge is within reach of everyone,” said CEO Eric Olson. “A world where scientists can get back to doing real science, not searching, and one where a new generation of citizen scientists can be created via easier access to real research.”

Founded in 2021 by Eric Olson and Christian Salem, Boston-based Consensus launched its search platform in 2022. Since then, Consensus has grown an audience of over 400,000 monthly users and seen significant revenue growth—reportedly increasing its annual revenue by more than 600% in 2024.

The round was led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from high-profile investors, including Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Draper Associates, Kevin Carter, Path Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. The funding will bolster Consensus’s efforts to make scientific research discoverable and consumable for academic researchers and the general public. Consensus will use the recent investment to expand Consensus’s team, accelerate product development, and experiment with various growth initiatives.

Union Square Ventures (USV) is a venture capital firm focusing on early-stage technology companies, investing in various sectors such as consumer internet, blockchain, and fintech. The firm often leads investments in startups with innovative models and transformative potential. Draper Associates is known for investing in early-stage technology companies across industries, including AI, fintech, and healthtech.

The market potential of global artificial intelligence in healthcare is projected to reach $187.95 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. AI tools like Consensus, which cater to a broad audience from academic researchers to healthcare professionals, could capture a significant slice of this expanding sector, especially as demand for credible, science-backed information grows in parallel with advancements in AI technology.

Olson explained that the idea for Consensus was rooted in the founders’ frustrations with the difficulty of accessing reliable scientific information online. “We are consumer technologists who are the children of academics, teachers, and researchers,” he said. “We deeply value research and evidence, but we’ve never had the skills nor attention span to comb through the research ourselves. We wanted to apply our backgrounds in consumer tech to scientific research and try to make this amazing content more accessible and consumable, no matter your background.”

Christian Salem, Consensus’s Chief Product Officer, echoed Olson’s enthusiasm for the project. “I had been following the advancements of AI and became convinced of its power and utility after playing with GPT-3 in 2020,” Salem said. “Couple this with the backdrop of the pandemic and the world clamoring for better access to scientific information—I felt the ‘why now’ for Consensus was too strong to overlook.”