Reply Next Raises €400K to Fix Multi-Location AI Gap

Reply Next, a Barcelona-based AI platform for managing the digital presence of businesses with multiple locations, raised €400,000 in pre-seed funding led by independent investment firm 4Founders Capital, with participation from business angels Juanjo Mostazo and David Alcobero, according to Tech.eu's reporting on the round.

Founder and CEO Miguel Peñate, a telecommunications engineer, identified a genuinely striking set of statistics behind why he built the company: "Nine out of every ten companies don't know how much revenue their locations generate through Google Maps, 70% of brands don't respond to users on public channels, and less than 10% of companies appear in AI-powered search engine results," Peñate said, according to Capital-Riesgo's reporting on the raise, translated from the original Spanish. "Reply Next was created to close this gap and give each location the intelligence it needs to compete."

Reply Next brings information and digital interactions associated with each individual business location, including reviews, ratings, messages, searches, and recommendations, into a single unified platform. Its AI agents can respond to customers, identify issues and opportunities, monitor competitors, and carry out tasks automatically according to each brand's specific guidelines, according to Tech.eu's reporting. The platform spans management across Google Maps, Booking, Google Play, the App Store, and increasingly, AI-powered search engines specifically.

Reply Next's founders are deliberately positioning the platform as something more strategic than a typical review-monitoring tool. The company aims to move beyond managing individual interactions by providing a system capable of identifying opportunities, anticipating problems, and taking direct action to improve a location's visibility, attract customers, and increase revenue, according to Tech.eu's reporting. That framing connects directly to the broader wave of AI agent platforms performing genuine, proactive business tasks rather than passive monitoring, a pattern we've tracked closely, including Thri5's own $5.4 million raise for an AI execution layer closing the gap between retail strategy and store-floor execution.

The detail worth paying particular attention to here is Reply Next's specific claim that fewer than 10% of businesses currently appear in AI-powered search engine results. That statistic reflects a genuinely emerging visibility gap distinct from traditional local SEO, as consumers increasingly turn to AI assistants and chatbots rather than standard search engines to find recommendations for local businesses, a shift multi-location brands managing hundreds or thousands of physical storefronts have limited existing tools to address directly.

Reply Next plans to use the capital to strengthen its technology and sales teams, accelerate core platform development, and build new AI agents specifically designed to automate processes and business decision-making for its brand customers, according to Capital-Riesgo's reporting. The company described the funding as marking the beginning of a new phase of growth for the business.

Reply Next's raise is worth understanding for any multi-location brand, franchise, or retail chain evaluating how to manage digital presence and customer interactions consistently across hundreds or thousands of individual physical locations, since the specific gaps the company cites, unmeasured Google Maps revenue, unanswered public reviews, and near-total absence from AI search results, represent genuine, quantifiable business costs most brands haven't yet addressed systematically.

For businesses evaluating AI-driven local marketing and reputation management tools specifically, Reply Next's focus on AI search visibility alongside traditional review management signals a genuinely emerging category worth watching, as the balance of consumer discovery shifts from conventional search engines toward AI-powered assistants and chatbots.

What does Reply Next's platform actually do?
Reply Next is an AI platform that helps brands with multiple physical locations manage and optimize their digital presence from a single dashboard, using AI agents to respond to customer reviews, identify business opportunities, monitor competitors, and automate tasks according to each brand's guidelines.

How much funding did Reply Next raise?
Reply Next raised €400,000 in pre-seed funding led by 4Founders Capital, with participation from business angels Juanjo Mostazo and David Alcobero.

Why does Reply Next say AI search visibility matters for multi-location businesses?
The company cites data showing less than 10% of businesses currently appear in AI-powered search engine results, a genuinely emerging visibility gap as consumers increasingly rely on AI assistants rather than traditional search engines to discover and choose local businesses.

Reply Next, a Barcelona-based AI platform for managing multi-location business digital presence, raised €400,000 in pre-seed funding led by 4Founders Capital, citing data showing 90% of businesses don't know how much revenue their locations generate through Google Maps and less than 10% appear in AI-powered search results. The platform unifies reviews, messages, and customer interactions across multiple digital channels into a single dashboard, using AI agents to respond to customers, monitor competitors, and automate location-level business decisions. Founder Miguel Peñate plans to use the new capital to strengthen the company's technology and sales teams while building additional AI agents specifically designed to automate processes and decision-making for multi-location brand customers.