Revolutionary AI Marketing Automation: How Two Dropouts Secured $28 Million in Startup Funding

Key Points

1. Conversion was founded by Neil Tewari and James Jiao, UC Berkeley dropouts, who identified a market need for AI marketing automation through extensive customer discovery.

2. The startup secured $28 million in Series A funding led by Abstract, with participation from True Ventures and HOF Capital, bringing total funding to $30 million.

3. Conversion is nearing $10 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) with 90% of customers switching from legacy marketing applications to their AI-native platform.

4. The company competes in a crowded Marketing AI field against established players like HubSpot and Adobe Marketo, as well as AI-native startups like Jasper and Copy.ai.

5. Conversion's success is attributed to foresight, strategic execution, and solving real-world problems, with rapid growth coinciding with the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT.