Semrush

In 2008, Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov founded Semrush, which started with a single product and operated as an unincorporated entity before it was incorporated. Both hold master’s degrees from universities in St. Petersburg: Shchegolev a Master of Science in Computer Science from St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, and Melnikov a Master of Science in Radio Engineering from St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

In 2010, Semrush surpassed 1,000 customers.⁠[1]

In 2012, the company was incorporated in Delaware as Semrush Inc., began expanding into SEO software, launched the Position Tracking tool and opened its first U.S. office near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; from October of that year, Shchegolev served as chief executive officer and president and Melnikov as chief operating officer, both also joining the board. In 2013, all shares of the U.S. company were transferred to the Cyprus company Bootstrap Marketing Group Ltd., which was renamed SEMrush CY LTD in 2015.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

In 2014, Semrush launched the Site Audit tool; in 2015 it surpassed 10,000 customers and launched social media tools.⁠[1][1]

In 2016, Semrush launched content marketing and digital PR tools. In 2017, the company completed its first financing round, led by entities affiliated with Siguler Guff & Company; in 2018 it completed another round led by Greycroft and e.ventures, moved its headquarters to Boston, Massachusetts, opened an office in Dallas, Texas, and surpassed $50 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). In 2019, it surpassed 50,000 customers and $100 million in ARR.⁠[1][1][1][1]

On December 19, 2019, SEMrush Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware and subsequently became the parent company of the group’s subsidiaries. In August 2020, Semrush acquired the Polish public relations technology company Prowly, expanding into digital PR software.⁠[1][1][1]

As of December 31, 2020, Semrush had $144.2 million in ARR and had raised only $37 million in capital since its founding; its 2020 revenue was $124.9 million, with a net loss of $7.0 million.⁠[1][1][1]

On March 24, 2021, SEMrush Holdings sold 10,000,000 shares of Class A common stock in its initial public offering at $14 per share and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SEMR; the IPO closed on March 29. The company has a dual-class share structure, with ten votes per Class B share and one vote per Class A share.⁠[2][1][1][2][2]

That year, the company completed a follow-on offering after the IPO and surpassed $200 million in ARR.⁠[2]

From the second quarter of 2022, Semrush began relocating its Russia-based workforce to other jurisdictions, substantially completing the effort by June 30, 2023; the related exit costs included employee severance, the loss on the sales of its Russian subsidiaries and other relocation costs.⁠[2][2]

In 2022, Semrush launched its first AI product built on ChatGPT; in 2023 it surpassed $300 million in ARR, 100,000 paying customers and 1,000,000 active free customers.⁠[2][2]

From 2022 to 2025, Semrush acquired Backlinko (January 2022), Kompyte (March 2022), Traffic Think Tank (February 2023), a majority stake in Datos (December 2023), a majority stake in the Polish listed company Brand 24 (April 2024), Ryte (July 2024), Exploding Topics (August 2024) and Third Door Media (October 2024). The Brand 24 stake acquired on April 29, 2024, was about 58% and rose to about 72% after a tender offer that July; Ryte added enterprise site audit and website performance capabilities to its enterprise SEO offering, and Third Door Media expanded its content and educational offerings. On October 17, 2025, the company also acquired substantially all of the assets of TopicRanker for about $2.22 million in cash.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2]

On February 22, 2025, co-founder Oleg Shchegolev resigned as chief executive officer and became chief technology officer while remaining a director; the board appointed William (Bill) Wagner, a director since September 2022, as chief executive officer, with both appointments effective March 10, 2025. Wagner had served as president and CEO of GoTo Group from December 2015 to January 2022.⁠[3][3][3][3][3]

On November 18, 2025, Semrush entered into a merger agreement with Adobe and its wholly owned subsidiary Fenway Merger Sub: upon completion, each share of Semrush Class A and Class B common stock would be converted into the right to receive $12 in cash, and Semrush would survive as a wholly owned subsidiary of Adobe. The companies announced the deal on November 19, at a total equity value of about $1.9 billion; it had been approved by both boards and was expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and Semrush stockholder approval, and the founders and other stockholders holding over 75% of the voting power had committed to vote in favor.⁠[4][4][4][5][5][5][5][5]

Adobe said consumers increasingly turn to large language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini for information and purchase recommendations, and that acquiring Semrush would combine generative engine optimization (GEO) with SEO to give marketers a holistic understanding of how their brands appear across owned channels, LLMs, traditional search and the wider web. The announcement noted that Semrush’s enterprise customer segment ARR grew 33% year over year in the most recent quarter.⁠[5][5][5]

On January 13 and 15, 2026, purported Semrush stockholders filed two lawsuits in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, and one in the Superior Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, alleging material omissions and misrepresentations in the merger proxy statement and seeking to enjoin completion of the merger. Semrush said the claims were without merit and denied all allegations, but to reduce litigation costs and uncertainty it voluntarily supplemented its disclosures on January 26.⁠[6][6][6][6][6][6][6][6]

On February 3, 2026, Semrush held a special meeting of stockholders at which shares representing about 89.5% of the total voting power were present or represented by proxy; the merger agreement was approved with 304,825,418 votes for, 29,533 against and 70,415 abstentions, and the advisory proposal on merger-related executive compensation was also approved.⁠[7][7][7][7]

On April 28, 2026, Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush: Fenway Merger Sub merged into Semrush, Semrush became a wholly owned subsidiary of Adobe, each share of common stock was automatically converted into the right to receive $12 in cash, and all of the previous directors left the board. Semrush asked the NYSE to suspend trading in and delist its Class A common stock before the market opened on April 28, and subsequently moved to deregister its securities and terminate its periodic reporting obligations.⁠[8][8][8][8][8][8]

Adobe said that with Semrush it would offer marketers of every size solutions for search engine optimization, generative engine optimization and agentic search optimization (ASO), integrating Semrush with products such as Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe LLM Optimizer and Adobe Brand Concierge. Chief executive officer Bill Wagner said that by joining Adobe the company would work to build the platform for brand visibility in the AI era.⁠[9][9][9][9][10]

Semrush describes itself as an online visibility management SaaS platform that helps companies identify and reach their target audiences; its products are organized around AI search optimization, SEO, paid advertising, social media management, local marketing, brand marketing and content marketing, and its platform aggregates data from more than 808 million unique domains.⁠[2][2][2]

In 2025, its last full fiscal year as a public company, Semrush had revenue of $443.6 million (2024: $376.8 million) and a net loss of $19.5 million; as of December 31, 2025, it had $471.4 million in ARR, about 108,000 paying customers and 1,567 full-time employees, with primary development hubs in places such as Prague and Limassol and its principal executive offices in Boston, Massachusetts.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2]

Semrush: Official website: https://www.semrush.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

X: Public account: https://x.com/semrush (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/semrush (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SemrushHQ (opens in a new window)⁠[11]