Harvard Law Student Mark Lee Ditches Legal Career To Build $90M AI Company Fighting $3 Trillion Counterfeit Industry

Mark Lee once sat in a Harvard trademark class and learned that counterfeiting amounted to more than $3 trillion a year, roughly 8% of global trade, with the illicit market growing about 20% annually during the COVID-19 pandemic, powered by marketplaces and social media.

That revelation redirected his path and led to the creation of MarqVision, which announced  last Thursday that it closed a $48 million Series B round to combat fakes with AI on a global scale.

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From Harvard Law Shock to AI Startup Launch

Lee told TechCrunch he planned to become a lawyer. Coming from a family of lawyers, that career felt natural. He started exploring other ideas while at Harvard Law, and during a trademark coursework, he found out how massive the counterfeit goods industry already was.

Lee used that insight to launch MarqVision in 2021, applying computer vision and AI to protect brands and intellectual property. The company’s total funding now stands at $90 million following the Series B round. Peak XV Partners led the raise with participation from Salesforce Ventures, HSG, Coral Capital, Y Combinator partner emeritus Michael Seibel, Altos Ventures and Atinum Investment, TechCrunch reported.

Roughly half of that new capital is allocated to growing AI and engineering teams to accelerate automation and integrated generative AI across MarqVision’s product suite. Another $10 million will make the tool enterprise-ready for larger brands, Lee told TechCrunch, while an additional $10 million will go toward regional expansion, including entering Japan. MarqVision already operates in the U.S., South Korea, China, and Europe.

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MarqVision Tops 350 Global Customers, Surges Past $20M ARR, Eyes $100M Target By 2027

MarqVision’s customer base now exceeds 350 brands worldwide, across industries like fashion, luxury, gaming, pharmaceuticals, entertainment, automotive, and consumer electronics.

The company reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue within eight months of launch, $10 million in three years, and is now over $20 million after four years, doubling each year along the way. Lee said the goal is to hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue by mid-2027.

MarqVision moved beyond detecting and removing counterfeits toward helping brands recover lost revenue. Lee told TechCrunch that clients report about 5% increase in sales when using its tools for both legal enforcement and go-to-market tracking.

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Expanding Into AI-Led Services for Global Brands

Lee told TechCrunch that more investors now seek companies using AI not only to increase productivity but to fundamentally transform service delivery. “AI is expanding the total addressable market for software from efficiency tools into the execution of the work itself,” he said.

MarqVision has moved from software with humans in the loop to managed services that deliver end-to-end protection for digital brand identity, IP enforcement, content moderation, and brand intelligence, TechCrunch reported. While brand protection often means takedown notices and counterfeit removal, MarqVision also offers revenue recovery and data intelligence features that broaden its appeal to corporate teams.

Lee said the priority has been delivering a strong customer experience and a scalable AI foundation. MarqVision claims over 99% accuracy, 24/7 monitoring, and rapid enforcement across multiple platforms.

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