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AI Marketing Startup Conversion Raises $28M to Challenge Legacy Automation Tools
July 30, 2025
AI-driven marketing automation startup Conversion has raised a $28 million Series A round led by Abstract, with participation from True Ventures and HOF Capital, as the young company sets its sights on modernizing how marketing teams operate.
Founded five years ago by UC Berkeley dropouts Neil Tewari and James Jiao, Conversion began as a homegrown solution to a common problem: the limitations of legacy tools like HubSpot. What started as a personal project quickly turned into a scalable business when the duo realized that many mid-market companies shared their frustrations — especially when it came to automation.
Tewari, now 24, traces the company’s origins back to high school, when his curiosity about startups got him in trouble for watching a livestream during class. That moment indirectly led to a key early investor — a family friend who picked him up from school and later became the first to back Conversion.
After experimenting with various product ideas at Berkeley, the founders created a lightweight automation layer for HubSpot. When they began conducting “customer discovery” interviews, they were met with unexpected enthusiasm. “We actually spent like two months doing like 160 customer interviews,” Tewari said. The feedback confirmed they had found a pain point worth solving.
In 2019, at age 19, the pair left college and raised a $2 million seed round. Living on a shoestring budget — sharing a two-bedroom apartment with five roommates — they bootstrapped Conversion through its early build phase. When ChatGPT launched and sparked a surge in demand for AI-powered tools, Conversion was well-positioned to capitalize.
Unlike older platforms that bolt on AI functionality, Conversion is AI-native from the ground up. It can automate follow-up emails, organize leads, enrich contact data, and streamline entire workflows — all in a way legacy platforms struggle to replicate. “Marketing teams want to be able to enrich contacts, [and] automate workflows,” Tewari said. Conversion does that out of the box.
Today, Conversion is approaching $10 million in annual recurring revenue, with about 90% of its customers being midsize companies that have ditched legacy platforms like Marketo, Pardot, and HubSpot. The company’s strategy focuses on replacing outdated tools, rather than competing for first-time buyers.
That focus may give Conversion an edge in a crowded space that includes other AI-native platforms like Jasper, Writer, and Copy.ai, as well as incumbents trying to catch up.
With a total of $30 million raised across its seed and Series A rounds, Conversion is now scaling quickly — and the founders have upgraded their living arrangements, too. Gone are the closet bedrooms and overcrowded apartments. Now, both have places of their own, a far cry from their early startup grind.
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