A newly launched retail app called Dote has raised $7.2 million in a venture capital funding round to compete with Amazon in the eCommerce fashion business.
According to news from TechCrunch, Dote is a mobile shopping app that curates from brands like Sephora, Victoria’s Secret and Gap in what the company calls a virtual mall. Users download the free mobile app and are then asked to select their favorite brands so they can be notified about sales and offers. They are also shown curated trends and can even show their friends what they’re buying.
As Founder and CEO Lauren Farleigh explained, there are “brands that don’t want to put their stuff on Amazon because it degrades their brand.” In addition, she says that “users don’t want to download 20 different apps” to access all their favorite fashion lines. Dote aims to appeal to young women, particularly between the ages of 15-35.
Lightspeed Venture Partners led the $7.2 million venture capital funding round in the company, and part of the VC money was secured on Apple’s “Planet of the Apps” startup show.
“When we saw the engagement and session times for Dote and heard from users, we saw that it had created the ‘shopping as entertainment’ experience on smartphones for millennial and Gen Z women,” says Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed. “We believe that young women are the early adopters of popular culture.”
The company takes an undisclosed share of the transaction revenue when a brand’s products sell through the shopping app. And while Dote won’t reveal how many users they have yet, it does say that the average user is coming back 15 times per month — eCommerce activity that enables the company to build data about consumption habits so that its algorithms can “determine what you’re most likely to buy,” according to Farleigh.
The company will use its new funding for hiring at its San Francisco headquarters, as well as to expand its retail partnerships.
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