Accelerating Growth: How AI-Powered Marketing Tools Propelled Hightouch to $100M ARR

Revolutionizing Marketing with AI: The Success Story of Hightouch

Traditionally, marketers heavily relied on designers and creative professionals to produce images and videos for personalized online advertising campaigns. However, the landscape changed in late 2024 when Hightouch, a seven-year-old startup, introduced an AI-powered service that enables marketing professionals to create custom content for renowned brands such as Domino’s, Chime, PetSmart, and Spotify without the involvement of brand design teams or ad agencies.

Since the launch of its AI product 20 months ago, Hightouch has experienced remarkable success, adding $70 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) and reaching a total of $100 million in ARR. This groundbreaking solution, known as GenAI, has democratized content creation by allowing individuals without extensive design experience to develop consumer-level assets.

Hightouch’s co-CEO, Kashish Gupta, emphasized the significance of GenAI, stating, “Before GenAI, it was impossible for someone without many years of design skills to create consumer-level assets.” The company is co-led by Tejas Manohar, a former engineering manager at Segment, a customer data platform acquired by Twilio for $3.2 billion in 2020.

Unlike standard AI models, Hightouch’s approach surpasses the capabilities of foundational AI systems that lack specific brand knowledge. Many brands initially attempted to utilize general foundational models, only to find that the resulting content did not align with their brand standards.

To address this issue, Hightouch directly integrates with its customers’ existing creative tools, such as Figma, photo libraries, and content management systems. By leveraging these resources, the platform familiarizes itself with a company’s brand identity, enabling its AI agents to autonomously create personalized ad campaigns that maintain brand consistency.

The ultimate goal of Hightouch’s AI technology is to generate images and videos that emulate professional design, steering clear of the artificial or generic appearance commonly associated with AI-generated content.

For instance, Hightouch ensures that brands like Domino’s never create fictional products, opting instead to use existing images and seamlessly incorporate them into ads designed by the AI. This meticulous attention to detail has propelled Hightouch to a valuation of $1.2 billion in February 2025, following an $80 million Series C funding round led by Sapphire Ventures.

With approximately 380 employees, Hightouch continues to redefine the marketing landscape with its innovative AI solutions, setting a new standard for content creation in the digital age.

Image: Tejas Manohar, Josh Curl, and Kashish Gupta (left to right)