Goldman Sachs, Bain Back Hightouch in AI Marketing Bet
The Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Bain Capital Ventures led round values the marketing AI startup at $2.75 billion.
Topics
News
- Goldman Sachs, Bain Back Hightouch in AI Marketing Bet
- Microsoft, OpenAI Rewrite Rules of Their AI Alliance
- Nvidia Expands India Footprint With Bengaluru Tower Deal
- AI Skills May Shape Appraisals Over Next Three Years
- Anthropic Tests Marketplace Where AI Agents Negotiate Deals
- AWS Reaffirms $12.7 Billion India Cloud Push
Hightouch, a San Francisco-based marketing technology company, raised $150 million in Series D funding as investors bet that AI agents will play a larger role in how enterprises plan and run campaigns.
The round was led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Bain Capital Ventures, valuing Hightouch at $2.75 billion, the company said. Iconiq Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Amplify Partners, Y Combinator and TD7, the venture capital arm of The Trade Desk, also participated.
The funding comes as marketing software companies race to turn generative AI from a content-production tool into a system that can act on customer data, brand rules and campaign workflows. Hightouch said its platform allows AI agents to research audiences, generate on-brand creative and execute campaigns across advertising, email, SMS and web channels.
The company said revenue has grown more than 100% in each of the past two years, driven by enterprise demand for AI agents that automate marketing workflows. Hightouch customers include Domino’s, PetSmart, DraftKings, Ramp and Whoop, according to the company.
“Marketing is sorely in need of reinvention,” Kashish Gupta, co-founder and co-CEO of Hightouch, said in the release. “But most AI solutions haven’t actually changed how marketing works. Instead, they generate vast amounts of mediocre content that doesn’t really get used.”
Gupta said Hightouch is designed to let AI agents operate directly on trusted data, find opportunities in real time and generate and execute campaigns across channels.
The company argues that marketing is harder to automate than software engineering because it depends on brand context, proprietary data and complex workflows that most generic AI tools cannot access or understand.
TechCrunch reported earlier this month that Hightouch had reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue, after adding $70 million in ARR since launching its AI product about 20 months earlier.
Hightouch says its approach is built around an enterprise context layer that combines customer data, brand context and marketing orchestration. The platform connects to existing creative tools, photo libraries and content management systems so brands can use their own assets rather than rely only on fully generated AI content.
“AI is fundamentally changing how enterprises operate, and marketing is one of the largest functions poised for transformation,” Darren Cohen, partner at Goldman Sachs, said in the release.
The new capital will support further investment in Hightouch’s platform, including AI-driven campaign orchestration, decisioning and cross-channel execution, the company said.
