Can you put a price on personal style? Let’s start at $6 million.
That’s the value of the Series A funding that online platform Keaton Row received, led by Time Inc., with Menlo Ventures, Rho Capital, and Grape Arbor also contributing.
The personal styling startup, founded in 2013 by Harvard Business School graduates Cheryl Han and Eleanor Mak, pairs women who are too busy to shop with stylists who can pick out clothes for them. The styling services are free, and users can shop from retailers like Nordstrom and Shopbop with just the click of a button.
“Personal styling without tech is still very high end,” Han told Business Insider. “But the tech we’ve built in Keaton Row allows anyone to work with a stylist.”
Concurrently, Keaton Row has become something of a marketplace for both aspiring stylists and those who like to pick out clothes for friends and family for fun. There are at present about 2,000 stylists offering their services on Keaton Row.
“There’s not necessarily a quality of what makes a good stylist,” Han said. “We encourage anyone who loves fashion to try it.”
The clear next step in the business, according to Han, is a mobile app. As she intoned in a press release announcing the investment, “We are committed to creating a service that builds upon the relationship our clients have with their stylists and to leveraging technology to create a seamless experience that gets better over time.”