AI-powered fashion search engine shoppin‘ has successfully raised $1 million in a pre-seed funding round from Info Edge Ventures. The startup aims to redefine fashion discovery by leveraging cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), making the process more seamless, intuitive, and highly personalized.
Empowering Seamless Fashion Discovery
Shoppin‘ envisions a future where users can easily find their perfect style using prompts, product descriptions, images, and even vibes. Unlike conventional fashion search engines, shoppin’ simplifies the journey from inspiration to purchase by integrating advanced AI models designed specifically for fashion discovery. The startup’s impact is already evident, with a rapidly growing community of over 35,000 Instagram followers and 20,000+ waitlist sign-ups in just three weeks—all achieved with zero marketing costs.
“If OpenAI’s multi-modal and NLP search prowess, Google’s indexing algorithm and Pinterest’s social DNA were to have a fashion-obsessed baby, it’d be us,” said Shlok Bhartiya, Founder & CEO of shoppin‘.
He further elaborated on the inspiration behind shoppin‘, emphasizing the influence of social media on fashion trends. “For Gen-Zs, over 75% of fashion inspiration discovery happens on Instagram and Pinterest. We started shoppin’ seven months ago with the idea of bridging the gap between inspiration discovery on social platforms and e-commerce discovery on marketplaces and D2C brand websites. Our mission at shoppin’ is to make fashion discovery as seamless and easy as clicking an image.”
Strategic Utilization of Funds
With the newly acquired capital, shoppin’ plans to focus on three key areas:
- Hiring Top Talent: The startup is committed to building a world-class team of AI engineers and fashion-tech experts.
- Enhancing Proprietary AI Technology: Significant investment will go into developing, fine-tuning, and scaling their custom-built Small Language Models (SLMs) and embeddings model, tailored specifically for fashion.
- Accelerating Growth & Market Expansion: By fostering partnerships with D2C brands, shoppin’ aims to expand its offerings and enhance its platform’s capabilities.
“Our foundational AI models for fashion and autonomous agents for commerce have enabled us to revolutionize fashion search,” added Utsav Soi, Co-founder & CTO of shoppin’.
Upcoming Beta Launch & Future Roadmap
Shoppin’ currently boasts a team of 20 Gen-Z engineers and marketers, all working towards the highly anticipated beta launch in February. The initial version will focus on search accuracy and personalization, with subsequent updates enhancing user experience.
The startup has already established partnerships with leading D2C brands and plans to collaborate with more brands to cater to the growing demands of Gen-Z consumers.
“Fashion discovery needs to be much more intuitive and enjoyable. With the emergence of many new fashion D2C brands in the country in the last five years, we strongly believe that surfacing upcoming and innovative D2C brands to the right customers and solving brands’ distribution challenges is essential,” said Kitty Agarwal, Partner at Info Edge Ventures.
She further praised the young and ambitious founding team, emphasizing the organic momentum shoppin’ has built in anticipation of its launch. “The founders are young and mission-driven—I’m yet to see any consumer product get the kind of social and word-of-mouth-driven organic waitlist shoppin’ it has been able to garner in the run-up to the launch. We are very excited.”
As AI continues to revolutionize industries, shoppin’ is positioning itself at the forefront of AI-powered fashion discovery. By integrating state-of-the-art AI models with user-friendly search capabilities, shoppin’ is set to transform how Gen-Z discovers, engages with, and shops for fashion. With a successful funding round and an upcoming beta launch, the startup is on track to reshape the future of online fashion retail.
Read more: How Andy Jassy Shapes Amazon and the Future of Global Commerce
