Phia, the shopping-focused startup co-founded by Phoebe Gates and climate activist Sophia Kianni, has secured $35 million in new funding. The company aims to overhaul the digital commerce experience by leveraging AI to create a personalized, end-to-end shopping journey, marking a significant step toward modernizing retail technology that has remained stagnant for decades.
Scaling Through Personalization and Partnerships
Since its inception, Phia has gained significant traction, boasting hundreds of thousands of monthly active users and an 11x revenue growth. The platform currently operates as a mobile app and web browser extension, helping consumers save money by identifying resale or secondhand alternatives to new products. For instance, if a user views a high-priced item, Phia suggests identical or similar listings from platforms like Poshmark at a lower cost.
The company has successfully onboarded 6,200 retail partners. By utilizing an affiliate marketing model, Phia provides brands with measurable benefits, including a 15% increase in average order value and a 50% reduction in return rates, according to internal data cited by the founders.
Building a ‘Holistic Shopping Agent’
The fresh capital infusion is earmarked for recruiting top-tier machine learning engineers. The founders envision Phia evolving into a “holistic shopping agent” that moves beyond static browsing. The goal is to offer a personalized feed that understands a user’s existing wardrobe, preferences, and sizes to provide tailored outfit recommendations and resale insights.
“Gone are the days where you would go to a static HTML page that’s not personalized for you,” said Phoebe Gates. The startup, currently a 20-person team based in New York, is prioritizing the quality of its technical talent to execute this vision of a more efficient, AI-driven retail ecosystem.
Navigating Data Privacy and Security
As Phia seeks to create highly personalized experiences, it faces the ongoing challenge of user data security. The company recently addressed concerns regarding its browser extension, which was found to capture HTML code from visited sites. Following reports by Fortune, Phia removed the feature, emphasizing that the data was never stored and that its backend architecture is designed to keep user information aggregated and anonymous.
“We are always extremely transparent with users about the reasons why we are requesting certain permissions,” Kianni stated, noting that the company remains committed to using data solely to help users find products efficiently.
The Future of Consumer Commerce
Phia’s rapid rise is bolstered by the founders’ strong digital presence, with a combined following of over 2 million across social platforms and their podcast, The Burnouts. By combining influencer-led marketing with advanced AI agents, the company intends to compress the manual, cumbersome process of online research into a seamless path to purchase.
“We’re on the cusp of a completely new way of shopping,” Gates added. “We want to make the entire ecosystem just way more efficient and make shopping fun again.”