Conversion, the AI-powered marketing automation startup, just raised $28 million in a Series A round led by Abstract, with True Ventures and HOF Capital joining in. The company was founded five years ago by two UC Berkeley dropouts, Neil Tewari and James Jiao.
The idea sparked when Tewari was caught watching TechCrunch Disrupt in high school and later convinced his family friend to back the startup. Conversion began as an internal tool layered on HubSpot to automate marketing tasks that legacy platforms missed.
“It was originally for us,” CEO Neil Tewari said.
“We actually spent like two months doing like 160 customer interviews with VPs of marketing, 50- to 500-employee businesses, and got a much more positive response than we could have imagined.”
The founders dropped out of college at 19 after raising $2 million in seed funding. They initially lived tight in a packed apartment to conserve cash.
When ChatGPT hit, Conversion baked AI into the platform for tasks like lead organization and personalized follow-ups. The startup is now pushing nearly $10 million ARR, mainly from mid-sized companies ditching older marketing software.
Conversion competes with big names like HubSpot, Adobe Marketo, and Salesforce Pardot, plus AI-native firms like Jasper, Writer AI, Iterable, and Copy.ai. But Tewari is aiming to convert existing users of legacy tools, not woo startups choosing their first marketing stack.
The company has raised $30 million total so far. The founders are better off now, living solo apartments without couch-surfing or closet sleepers.
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