In the past, marketers depended on designers and creative professionals for creating images and videos for personalized online ad campaigns.
In late 2024, seven-year-old startup Hightouch introduced an AI-powered tool enabling marketers to produce custom content for brands like Domino’s, Chime, PetSmart, and Spotify without needing brand design teams or ad agencies.
The service has been very successful. Since the launch of its AI product 20 months ago, Hightouch reported adding $70 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) to TechCrunch, raising their total ARR to $100 million.
“Before Gen AI, creating consumer-level assets required extensive design skills,” stated Kashish Gupta, co-CEO of Hightouch. The company is co-led by Tejas Manohar, an ex-engineering manager at Segment, a customer data platform that Twilio acquired for $3.2 billion in 2020.
However, Hightouch’s strategy exceeds the capabilities of standalone AI models.
Hightouch noted many brands initially tried crafting ad campaigns via general foundational models—broad AI systems that support tools like chatbots but lack specific brand familiarity—only to find the output didn’t align with “on-brand” standards.
“Foundation models didn’t understand particular consumer brands’ colors, fonts, tones, or assets,” says Gupta. “LLMs would generate non-existent products, hindering feasible advertising and emails for products.”
To maintain brand cohesion, Hightouch integrates directly with client’s existing creative tools like Figma, photo libraries, and content management systems (CMS).
By using these resources, the platform learns a company’s distinct brand identity. Hightouch’s AI agents then utilize these photos, designs, and customer insights to help marketers independently build personalized ad campaigns, bypassing designers and developers.
Hightouch’s AI aims to produce images and videos indistinguishable from those created by professional designers, steering clear of the often “fake” or generic AI look.
“For example, Domino’s won’t generate a pizza,” Gupta says. “They’ll use existing pizza images placed into an ad where the background and other elements may be AI-generated.”
The company employs about 380 people and was valued at $1.2 billion in February 2025, following an $80 million Series C funding round led by Sapphire Ventures.
Pictured above, left to right: Tejas Manohar and Kashish Gupta.