{"id":705410,"date":"2026-05-31T01:48:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/705410\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T01:48:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:48:25","slug":"ai-powered-shopping-app-phia-inks-new-a-list-investors-in-series-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/705410\/","title":{"rendered":"AI-powered Shopping App Phia Inks New A-list Investors in Series A"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPhia<\/a>, the AI-powered shopping <\/a>app cofounded by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni last year, has attracted a new crop of A-list investors.<\/p>\n

\n\tRevealed Friday, the list reads like a \u201cwho\u2019s who\u201d of Hollywood, tech and TikTok, with Alix Earle, Alexandre Arnault, Ice Spice, Khlo\u00e9 Kardashian, Charles Porch of OpenAI, Allison Ellsworth of Poppi and more among the biggest names behind the $35.5 million series A funding round, led by Notable Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Venture. In January, the series A was valued at $185.5 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe full catalogue of celebrity backers includes: Ashley Graham, Amy Griffin, Bobbi Brown, Brooks Nader and Sisters, Cait Bailey, Chriselle Lim, Codie Sanchez, Halsey, Jay Shetty, Jessica Alba, Karlie Kloss, Lilly Singh, Lori Harvey, Leila Hormozi, Shaboozey, Olivia Culpo, Sophia Amoruso, Rachel Zoe, Mindy Kaling, Alex Pall and Drew Taggart of The Chainsmokers, Ice Spice, Gunna, Eileen Gu, Sydney Sweeney, Paris Hilton, Priyanka Chopra, Wendi Murdoch, Winnie Harlow and Zack Bia.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tech and operators cohort also includes: Vladimir Tenev of Robinhood; Ankur Jain of BILT; Iqram Magdon-Ismal of Venmo; Mellody Hobson, co-chief executive officer and president at Ariel Investments; Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta; SV Angel; Alex Zaccaria of Linktree; Kevin Hartz of Xoom, and Mati Staniszewski of ElevenLabs.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe robust investment comes a little more than a year after Phia launched in April 2025. It also follows the $8 million seed round pioneered once again by Kleiner Perkins, with participants Kris Jenner, Hailey Bieber, Sara Blakely and Michael Rubin.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve had the privilege of knowing Phoebe and Sophia since their early days at Stanford, and it has been incredible to watch them grow from ambitious students into two of the most impressive founders I know. They represent the kind of tech entrepreneurs I hoped to support when I started Kode With Klossy, and even more so, the kind of leaders and role models I am so glad our scholars have to learn from,\u201d Kloss told WWD. \u201cI\u2019ve always been excited by the possibilities of how technology can continue to transform the way we experience fashion, and Phia is bringing that vision to life by helping millions of women shop smarter. I\u2019m so proud to support them and be part of their journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPiggybacking off that, Brown said, \u201cI\u2019ve spent my career building brands rooted in simplicity, quality and helping women feel confident, and I love that Phia delivers that same idea. Shopping<\/a> today can feel overwhelming with too many options, but Phia gives shoppers the clarity they finally deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith north of 1.5 million users, Phia has expanded to include more than 9,600 retail brand partners, with over 350 million products. It also offers a \u201ccompanion Shopping<\/a> Agent\u201d to input discount codes, calculate resale value and offer alternative price options. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor all its growth,\u00a0e-commerce<\/a>\u00a0hasn\u2019t meaningfully evolved to reflect how consumers actually make decisions,\u201d Gates told WWD ahead of the launch. \u201cShoppers are navigating an overwhelming number of options across retail and resale<\/a>, often without the tools to confidently assess value. With Phia, we\u2019ve built an AI<\/a>-powered platform that brings clarity to that process \u2014 personalizing insights in real time so users can make smarter decisions instantly. It\u2019s about delivering the right answer, at the right moment, in just one click.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phia, the AI-powered shopping app cofounded by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni last year, has attracted a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[256,64,63,203,7240,105],"class_list":["post-705410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-ai","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mobile","tag-shopping","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}