---
title: AI Advertising Agency Multiply Drove 6x More Leads Than a Human Agency in a Head-to-Head Budget Split
description: Multiply raised $9.5 million led by Mayfield for AI-powered B2B ads. Its AI drove 6x more leads than a human agency in a head-to-head test across Google and LinkedIn.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-03-18T13:29:46.124Z
updated: 2026-03-18T13:29:46.143Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/multiply-ai-advertising-agency-funding
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/multiply-founders.webp
categories: Startups, Marketing
content_type: Spotlight
region: San Francisco
publication: Sovereign Magazine
about:
  - type: Organization
    name: Multiply
    description: Multiply is an AI-native media agency for B2B companies. It uses proprietary AI agents to run hundreds of structured ad experiments across Google and LinkedIn, continuously optimizing campaigns from internal company data including sales call recordings, CRM systems, and pipeline outcomes. Founded by Matt Jayson (ex-Google, ex-Brex) and Ashish Warty (ex-HackerOne, ex-Dropbox), the company raised $9.5 million in March 2026 led by Mayfield.
    url: https://gomultiply.com
    industry: AI Advertising
    sameAs:
      - https://www.linkedin.com/company/gomultiply
---

When a fast-growing AI startup split its advertising budget in half last year, giving one portion to an established media agency and the other to [Multiply](https://gomultiply.com), the results were not ambiguous. Multiply's AI ran 142 structured experiments over two months. It generated six times more leads in the first month and five times more sales meetings in the second.

The agency it was tested against was, by Multiply CEO Matt Jayson's own account, a good one. "This agency is great," Jayson wrote in a public LinkedIn post about the test. "They're good at strategy. I'm a huge fan of theirs." The AI simply operated at a scale that no human team could match.

Today, Multiply emerged from stealth with $9.5 million in funding to formalize the approach behind those numbers. The round was led by Mayfield, with participation from Sorenson Capital, Instacart co-founder Max Mullen, and Josh Woodward, the head of Google Gemini and Google Labs.

## 142 Experiments in 60 Days

The core of Multiply's model is what it calls Self-Learning Advertising. Traditional ad campaigns are built around a handful of creative variations that a media buyer monitors and adjusts over weeks. Multiply breaks every ad into sub-components: headline, first sentence, pain point, tone, call-to-action, imagery. Each variable is isolated and tested independently across hundreds of structured experiments.

The system connects directly to a client's sales call recordings, CRM data, and pipeline outcomes. It learns the specific language that prospects use, the objections they raise, and the reasons they convert. That information feeds back into the ad creative in near real-time, so campaigns improve week over week rather than decaying after launch.

Jayson, who spent a decade at Google before leading product at Brex, describes the phenomenon Multiply is built to solve. "Modern companies already have all the data needed to create radically better ads," he says. "Sales conversations, CRM systems, and pipeline outcomes reveal exactly why customers buy. Yet those insights rarely make their way into ad campaigns fast enough."

## The Investor Roster Tells a Story

The $9.5 million round includes names that each bring something specific to the table.

Mayfield led the round under its "Collaborative Intelligence-as-a-Service" thesis, which backs companies where AI agents work alongside human experts rather than replacing them entirely. Patrick Salyer, a Mayfield partner and former CEO of Gigya (acquired by SAP), joins Multiply's board.

Josh Woodward's participation is the most striking detail. Woodward runs Google Labs and the [Gemini app](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/openai-s-hidden-25-billion-ad-goldmine-why-790-million-free-users-could-transform-ai-economic), which has over 450 million monthly active users. He was named to TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2025. He is now personally backing a company that helps B2B brands extract more value from Google Ads using AI. Whether that reads as a vote of confidence in Multiply's technology or an implicit acknowledgment that Google's own ad tools leave room for improvement, the signal is hard to ignore.

Max Mullen, who co-founded Instacart, brings experience scaling marketplace businesses where matching supply and demand in real time is the entire problem. Sorenson Capital, a Utah-based firm with $1.6 billion under management, adds deep B2B go-to-market expertise.

## The Numbers From Early Customers

Multiply's early customer list includes companies that have raised hundreds of millions in venture capital.

Vanta, a cybersecurity compliance platform valued at $4.15 billion after raising over $500 million from Sequoia Capital and other top-tier investors, reports 770 percent more sales meetings generated through Multiply's campaigns. "We build and test faster with their AI, and their team is strategic, hands-on, and operates as trusted partners," the company said.

Listen Labs, an AI customer research platform backed by $100 million in funding, said LinkedIn became its most efficient paid channel for new leads, with campaigns performing five times above LinkedIn benchmarks.

Across Multiply's customer base, the common thread is velocity. B2B LinkedIn ads carry an average cost-per-click of $15.72 and notoriously poor baseline performance. Most companies run fewer than ten creative variations per campaign. Multiply runs hundreds.

## A $23 Billion Market That Is Still Mostly Manual

B2B digital advertising is projected to reach $23 billion by 2026, growing at double-digit rates year over year. Yet it accounts for less than six percent of total digital ad spend. The gap is structural.

B2B purchases involve buying committees of ten or more stakeholders, each with different information needs. Sales cycles run six to 18 months. Attribution is effectively guesswork when a deal touches dozens of touchpoints across multiple decision-makers over half a year.

These are the conditions that have historically kept [ad-tech companies focused on B2C](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/mega-ai-11m-series-a-smb-growth-engine), where targeting is simpler and sales cycles are measured in minutes. Multiply is betting that AI-driven experimentation at scale can close the complexity gap.

The company operates as a managed service. It does not sell platform access or software seats. Clients pay for outcomes. Multiply's AI agents handle the experimentation while human strategists set direction and maintain brand safety. Co-founder and CTO Ashish Warty, who previously served as SVP of Product and Engineering at HackerOne and VP of Global Engineering at Airship, describes the approach: "Every campaign includes human oversight from experienced media buyers, and we work within each customer's brand and compliance requirements."

## Preparing for ChatGPT Ads

Multiply currently focuses on Google Search ads and LinkedIn. But the company says its infrastructure was built for what comes next.

[OpenAI began testing ads inside ChatGPT](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/chatgpt-s-ad-trial-can-ai-monetise-without-losing-user-trust) in early 2026. The format is fundamentally different from search advertising. Instead of matching keywords, ChatGPT ads match the intent of a conversation. A CFO reasoning through a purchase decision inside ChatGPT would see ads relevant to that context, not to a keyword they typed into a search bar.

The entry barrier is steep. ChatGPT ads carry a $60 CPM and a $200,000 minimum commitment. For most mid-market B2B companies, navigating early access requires an agency partner.

Multiply says it is already helping customers prepare for the channel. Its component-level testing approach, where each element of an ad is isolated and optimized independently, maps naturally to conversational ad formats where the "ad" is contextual text within a response.

## What Comes Next

Multiply plans to expand into a full omni-channel ad buyer for B2B companies. The roadmap includes additional ad platforms, daily creative refresh, unified cross-channel attribution, and AI-driven budget allocation to maximize pipeline impact across all channels simultaneously.

The company was founded by Matt Jayson and Ashish Warty. Jayson is a Stanford graduate who spent a decade at Google before serving as Head of Product for Core Experiences at Brex, where the company reached a $12.3 billion valuation. Warty brings over 25 years of engineering and product leadership, including a tenure at HackerOne, where he built the engineering organization for the world's largest hacker-powered security platform, and at Dropbox, which he joined through the acquisition of his previous startup MobileSpan.

Multiply is based in San Francisco.

## Further Context

**Q: How is AI changing advertising for B2B companies?**
AI is enabling B2B advertisers to run hundreds of structured experiments simultaneously, testing individual ad components like headlines, pain points, and calls-to-action in isolation. Companies like Multiply connect AI directly to sales call recordings and CRM data to generate ad creative based on actual buyer language, then continuously optimize campaigns based on pipeline outcomes rather than vanity metrics. Early adopters report improvements of 300 to 500 percent in sales meetings and pipeline generated.

**Q: Do LinkedIn ads work for B2B?**
LinkedIn remains one of the most effective paid channels for B2B companies because it offers professional targeting by job title, company size, industry, and seniority. The challenge is cost. LinkedIn's average cost-per-click is $15.72, significantly higher than other platforms. AI-powered optimization can offset this by running more creative variations and reducing wasted spend. Listen Labs, an AI research platform, reported that LinkedIn became its most efficient paid channel after using AI-driven campaign management, performing five times above LinkedIn benchmarks.

**Q: How much do ChatGPT ads cost?**
As of early 2026, ChatGPT ads carry an approximate CPM of $60 with a minimum commitment of $200,000. Ads appear as sponsored text at the bottom of ChatGPT responses for free-tier and Go-tier users in the United States. Paid tiers (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education) remain ad-free. OpenAI has partnered with Criteo to build programmatic ad infrastructure, and CRM integration with platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot is expected later in 2026.

**Q: How much does a B2B advertising agency typically cost?**
Traditional B2B advertising agencies typically charge management fees of 10 to 20 percent of ad spend, plus setup fees and creative costs. Managed service models like Multiply charge for outcomes rather than hours or platform access, which shifts the cost structure toward results. The specific pricing depends on the scope of channels, campaign volume, and the level of strategic support included. Most B2B companies spend between $3,000 and $30,000 per month on agency-managed paid media, with enterprise clients spending significantly more.

**About Multiply**

Multiply is an AI-native media agency for B2B companies. It uses proprietary AI agents to run hundreds of structured ad experiments across Google and LinkedIn, continuously optimizing campaigns from internal company data including sales call recordings, CRM systems, and pipeline outcomes. Founded by Matt Jayson (ex-Google, ex-Brex) and Ashish Warty (ex-HackerOne, ex-Dropbox), the company raised $9.5 million in March 2026 led by Mayfield.

[Website](https://gomultiply.com)