During his time as a law student at Harvard, Mark Lee encountered a concept in a trademark class that would change his career trajectory. He learned about the staggering scale of counterfeiting, an illicit industry worth more than three trillion dollars annually. This discovery set him on an unexpected path toward entrepreneurship.
Lee had always been broadly interested in technology and startups but never saw himself as an entrepreneur. With a family of lawyers, he assumed he was set to become a lawyer himself, believing it was a natural path. However, his education at Harvard Law was not what he expected, and he began to question whether a career as a corporate lawyer was the right fit.
He started exploring different ideas. In a trademark class, he learned that counterfeiting is the world’s largest criminal enterprise, with three trillion dollars in counterfeit products traded every year, accounting for about eight percent of global commerce. What struck him was that during the COVID pandemic, as everything moved online, this already massive market was growing twenty percent a year, fueled by marketplaces and social media. He saw it as a universal problem that could be solved with the technology he was passionate about at the time, computer vision.
That insight became the seed for MarqVision, the company he later co-founded in 2021. The name reflects its origins, with Marq from trademark and Vision from computer vision. The mission was straightforward but ambitious: to harness AI-powered computer vision to fight counterfeiting and trademark infringement on a global scale.
By 2025, the LA-headquartered AI startup closed a forty-eight million dollar Series B round, bringing its total capital raised to about ninety million dollars. Roughly half of the fresh capital will go toward expanding its AI and engineering teams to accelerate automation and integrate generative AI across its product suite. Another ten million dollars is earmarked for making the platform enterprise-ready as the company moves upmarket to target larger brands, while an additional ten million dollars will fund regional expansion. Already active in the U.S., Korea, China, and Europe, MarqVision is now entering Japan, highlighting the borderless nature of IP law and the company’s push to scale globally.
The financing was led by Peak XV Partners, formerly Sequoia Capital India and SEA, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, HSG, formerly Sequoia China, Coral Capital, and Michael Seibel, partner emeritus at Y Combinator. Returning backers, including YC, Altos Ventures, and Atinum Investment, also joined the round.
Lee explained that top-tier investors are increasingly looking for technology companies that leverage AI not just to enhance productivity but to fundamentally transform service delivery. He believes AI is expanding the total addressable market for software from efficiency tools into the execution of the work itself, unlocking a market opportunity of over ten trillion dollars. While many early-stage companies are experimenting with AI to disrupt labor-intensive service industries, very few have reached the early growth stage with the scale and traction of MarqVision.
MarqVision serves more than 350 customers worldwide across industries ranging from fashion and luxury to gaming, pharmaceuticals, entertainment, automotive, and consumer electronics. The startup reached one million dollars in annual recurring revenue within eight months, ten million dollars in three years, and recently crossed twenty million dollars after four years, doubling annually along the way.
Lee stated their goal is to reach one hundred million dollars in annual recurring revenue by mid-2027. He noted that growth could have been faster, but the company prioritized two things: delivering the best customer experience and building a scalable AI-driven foundation. As a managed service, they can monetize many offerings, but everything ties back to one core promise, which is helping global brands control their digital presence and grow revenue.
Once considered an unappealing category in technology, services is being redefined by AI, which brings software-like scalability and efficiency. This shift has fueled investor interest, with Peak XV, HSG, and Salesforce Ventures backing the company’s vision. The rise of large language models has reframed its positioning from a software company with humans in the loop to a leader in the emerging AI-led services space, drawing strong competition in its latest funding round.
MarqVision started out fighting counterfeits, using AI to spot and remove fake products online. As the technology advanced, the startup shifted its focus toward helping brands directly recover lost revenue. Today, many clients report a roughly five percent boost in sales, making the platform valuable not just to legal teams but also to go-to-market organizations tracking revenue impact.
When Lee first pitched MarqVision, he envisioned a five billion dollar software company, selling fifty thousand dollar tools to ten thousand IP teams worldwide. But Y Combinator partner Michael Seibel urged him to think bigger, beyond software, by reimagining how IP and brand professionals work. MarqVision has since expanded into end-to-end managed services, an opportunity Lee now believes is one hundred times larger than his original plan.
Lee noted that brand protection typically involves detecting and removing infringements like counterfeits and impersonations, while brand control goes further, giving companies the ability to manage their presence across e-commerce, social media, websites, and chat platforms. Looking ahead, the roadmap includes brand intelligence, offering insights into supply chains, pricing strategies, and reseller networks.
The company’s vision is to be the backbone of every global brand that owns intellectual property, becoming the AI-led services platform for IP, content, and brand professionals worldwide.