# Austin Hughes

> Austin Hughes is the San Francisco-based co-founder and CEO of Unify, an AI-driven sales platform built around signal-based outbound. After beginning in investment banking at Centerview Partners, investing at SoftBank Vision Fund, and helping build Ramp's growth organization, Hughes co-founded Unify with Connor Heggie in 2023. His operating style treats distribution like product development: instrument the work, run small experiments, learn quickly, and scale what produces measurable pipeline.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at Unify
- **Organizations:** Unify, Ramp, SoftBank Vision Fund, Centerview Partners, Rice University
- **Education:** BA, Mathematical Economic Analysis, Rice University
- **Known for:** Helped build Ramp's growth organization from one person to more than 25, according to the GTM Podcast., Co-founded Unify and developed its signal-based outbound approach from workflows he encountered while leading growth product at Ramp., Unify reported 8x year-over-year revenue growth when announcing its $40 million Series B.

## Career timeline

- **2016-2018** — Worked as an investment banking analyst at Centerview Partners in New York.
- **2019-2020** — Worked as an investor at SoftBank Investment Advisers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- **2020-2022** — Joined Ramp as employee 45 and became a founding member of its growth team, later leading growth product.
- **2023** — Co-founded Unify with Connor Heggie and became CEO.
- **2024-01** — Publicly launched Unify after a year of building and announced a $6.6 million seed round from OpenAI Startup Fund, Thrive, and Emergence.
- **2024-10** — Unify announced a $12 million Series A led by Emergence Capital with participation from Thrive Capital and OpenAI Startup Fund.
- **2025-07** — Unify announced a $40 million Series B led by Battery Ventures, nine months after its Series A.

## Achievements

- Helped build Ramp's growth organization from one person to more than 25, according to the GTM Podcast.
- Co-founded Unify and developed its signal-based outbound approach from workflows he encountered while leading growth product at Ramp.
- Unify reported 8x year-over-year revenue growth when announcing its $40 million Series B.
- Unify's seed announcement generated about 420 demo requests in 48 hours, according to Hughes.
- Built early side projects including Simon's Wealth and Fisheye Surf, a marketplace connecting surfers with photographers.

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Published an essay explaining the management shifts behind Unify's reported 24x revenue growth in 2024, emphasizing people and category creation.
- **2025-07** — Announced Unify's $40 million Series B led by Battery Ventures after the company reported 8x year-over-year revenue growth.
- **2025-07** — Appeared on the GTM Podcast to discuss technical growth systems, signal-based selling, and Unify for Sales Reps.

## Links

- Website: https://www.austinhughes.fyi/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-t-hughes
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/austinh___

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/austin-hughes
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-18