Seth Besmertnik

Seth Besmertnik is the CEO and co-founder of Conductor, an enterprise search and AI visibility platform. Conductor says he has been working on the company’s search and digital visibility mission since 2006, first in SEO and later in AEO and GEO. The company describes Conductor as an enterprise AEO platform used by global brands and lists customers including Citi, FedEx, Mastercard, and e.l.f. Cosmetics.

Besmertnik’s earliest company was LinkExperts, which he has described as the seed of Conductor. In a 2019 Conductor essay, he wrote that he and Jeremy Duboys started LinkExperts as a side business in 2006; it grew quickly, but the assets were sold in 2010, leaving a smaller team and a pre-revenue product that became Conductor. Baruch College identifies him as a Baruch alumnus from the class of 2004, and its Zicklin School has described how his entrepreneurship coursework influenced his path as a founder.

Conductor was acquired by WeWork in March 2018. After WeWork’s 2019 turmoil, Besmertnik led Conductor’s buyback and return to independence, creating Conductor Founders Inc. with more than 250 employee co-founders. In November 2021, Conductor announced $150 million in Series A funding led by Bregal Sagemount at a near half-billion-dollar valuation. Besmertnik later led acquisitions of ContentKing in 2022 and Searchmetrics in 2023, expanding Conductor’s technical SEO monitoring and European enterprise SEO footprint.

As an angel investor, his public investment record appears limited. AngelMatch lists him as an angel/individual investor in New York investing at Seed stage, with market focus areas of e-commerce, software, and consumer internet. Public databases identify Thrive Commerce as a prior investment.

• Public angel-investor data points to Seed-stage investing in e-commerce, software, and consumer internet.
• His strongest domain expertise is founder-led B2B SaaS, enterprise marketing technology, search, content, AI visibility, and commerce-related infrastructure.
• He repeatedly frames winning products and marketing around customer usefulness. In a 2025 interview, he said: “If you’re not helping people, you’re just selling something.”
• For AI and software companies, he has emphasized practical adoption over hype: leaders should make room for teams to experiment with AI because “the cost of not engaging is high.”
• He appears likely to value founder resilience and operating discipline. His own advice to entrepreneurs in the same interview was: “don’t fear failure,” “keep learning,” and “lead with value.”