When Mark Lee was a student in the Harvard Law School, his trademark classes exposed him to an incredible scale, an illegal industry worth more than $3 trillion each year, setting him on an unexpected path to entrepreneurship.
“I’ve always been a widespread interest in technology and startups, but I really didn’t think I would be an entrepreneur. I thought I would be a lawyer. Most of my family were lawyers and law practice felt like a natural path,” Lee said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. However, when he arrived at Harvard Law, education was not what he expected, Lee said, adding that he began questioning whether a career as a corporate lawyer was appropriate.
“So I began exploring a variety of ideas. One day I took the trademark class and found out that counterfeiting is the world’s largest criminal enterprise, $3 trillion in counterfeit products every year, about 8% of global commerce. “I saw it as a universal problem, and computer vision, a problem that can be solved with the technology I was passionate about at the time.”
That insight became the seed of Marqvision, which he later co-founded in 2021. The name itself reflects its origins, its trademark “Marq” and its “vision” from computer vision. The mission was easy, but ambitious. This harness is used to combat counterfeiting and trademark infringement on a global scale, using AI-powered computer vision.
Fast forward to 2025, LA-Headquarted AI Startup closed its $48 million Series B round, increasing its total capital to around $90 million.
Approximately half of the fresh capital will accelerate automation and integrate generated AI throughout the product suite as it expands its AI and engineering teams. An additional $10 million will be allocated to make the platform enterprise-ready to target luxury brands, and another $10 million will fund the expansion of the region. Already active in the US, South Korea, China and Europe, Marqvision has now entered Japan and emphasizes the boundless nature of IP laws and the promotion of companies expanding global scale.
The funding was led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & Sea), with participation from Salesforce Ventures (formerly Sequoia China) of HSG (formerly Sequoia China), a partner honorary to Y Combinators, and Salesforce Ventures from Michael Seibel. Backers from YC, Altos Ventures and Atinum Investment also participated in the round.
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“Increasingly, top-class investors are looking for technology companies that will leverage AI to not only increase productivity, but also fundamentally transform their service delivery,” Lee explained. “AI is expanding the gross addressable market for software from efficiency tools to the execution of the work itself. This unlocks more than $10 trillion in market opportunities. Many early-stage companies are experimenting with AI to disrupt the labour-intensive service industry, but few have reached the early stages of scale and traction.”
Marqvision serves over 350 customers worldwide, from fashion and luxury to games, medicines, entertainment, automobiles and home appliances. The startup has reached $1 million in annual revenue within eight months and $10 million in three years, and has recently surpassed $20 million in four years, doubled every year along the way.
“Our goal is $100 million by mid-2027,” Lee said. “The growth may be faster, but we prioritized two things: providing the best customer experience and building a scalable, AI-driven foundation. As a managed service, many services can be monetized, but everything is tied to one core promise.
When considered an unattractive category of technology, “services” are redefineed by AI, bringing software-like scalability and efficiency. This shift has sparked interest among investors who support the company’s vision by Peak XV, HSG and Salesforce Ventures. The rise of a massive language model has reshaped its positioning from “software companies with people in loops” to leaders in the emerging AIREDERSE service space, sparking strong competition in the latest funding rounds.
Marqvision has launched a fight against counterfeit products to use AI to find and remove fake products online. As technology advances, startups have shifted their focus to helping brands recover lost revenue directly. Today, many clients report sales are up around 5%, reporting that the platform is valuable not only for legal teams but also for organizations heading to the market that tracks the impact of revenue.
When Lee first pitched Marqvision, he imagined a $5 billion software company and sold $50,000 tools to 10,000 IP teams around the world. But YC partner Michael Sabel has urged him to think bigger beyond software by rethinking how IP and brand experts work. Marqvision has since expanded to end-to-end managed services. This is what Lee thinks is now 100 times greater than the original plan.
Brand protection usually involves detection and deletion of infringements such as counterfeits and spoofing, but brand control goes further, giving businesses the ability to manage their existence across e-commerce, social media, websites and chat platforms. Looking ahead, the roadmap includes brand intelligence, including supply chain insights, pricing strategies and a network of resellers.
“Our vision is to be the backbone of all global brands that own IPs, and will be an AIPERED service platform for IP, content and brand experts around the world,” Lee said.
