How did Phic Gates and Sophia Kianni used Gen Z’s methods to raise $ 8 million for Phia

There is the start of a new fashion in the city. Meet Phia, the shopping application founded by Bill Gates Vepey’s daughter and partner participating in Stanford in the Chamber, Sofia Kayani.

Phia is looking for the web to help users compare the price of fashion elements. It is a mobile phone application and browser attachment, and it is mainly “Google Fashion Tours”, where the company strengthens itself.

“While we think about the future of fashion will be five years ago, everything will be related to access to things that people have not been able to reach before,” Gates told Techcrunch.

The app is One of the many startups for fashion For the defection in this era of artificial intelligence, and seeking to achieve more ease of the world of e -commerce online.

Investors and consumers love this category so far. Even PHIA, which was just launched in April, said it already had about 500,000 users.

In early September, it was also announced A seed tour of $ 8 million This, Vibi Gates, 23, told us only three and a half weeks to raise it. The tour was led by Kleiner Perkins, with other investors, including Chris Jenner and Hayley Bieber.

Kenani said that PHIA has now introduced a new and improved research on the application that looks through more than 300 million fashion elements. The goal is to make the e-commerce shopping experience smooth-a place can see all they have purchased or searched for previously, and to find new important elements.

Gates and Kyani met two years ago and started working on the application about a year after they passed. The first product that they built was the extension of the desktop chrome that helped users find used alternatives while shopping online. “It was beautiful animals vehicles,” he remembered my being.

The user’s notes also revealed that most of their peers were shopping on their phones, not on desktop computers. In addition, Kayani said, young people were more interested in instant checks of prices, instead of used comparisons. “We have really decided to control our focus,” she said.

“We should have known this frankly from our behavior,” Gates added. “The girl shopping and passing all the time often does it on her phone; the laptop is more when she works, but the phone is the key.”

Therefore, Gates and Kianni began building a new application.

China said that the first examination that Fi had already received from one of the social entrepreneurship programs in Stanford. Once the traction begins to increase, Gates and Kenani decided that the additional implementation of their vision requires investment capital.

They searched for first -class funds to photograph their tour and in particular wanted prominent women as investors. But before they can start the clamor to collect donations, Soma Capital Cold Out to Kianni on LinkedIn after hearing the product. The company ended with the provision of one of the first institutional checks.

“From there, they ended up bringing us to many amazing people.” “We have ended up with both cold awareness and then made others communicate with us.”

Their tour is the merging of some of the most business and technology people and the collision of two strong networks.

My entity itself is a famous activist The foundations of the non -profitables of CardinateAnd that translates information about climate change into different languages. She was one of the youngest people who became a UN adviser ever, and she appeared in many lists, including 100 BBC women.

Regardless of Jenner and People, among others in the tour of the billionaire Michael Robin, the founder of Sarah Blake, and Sherrill Sandberg. Bassoma ended with their introduction to the team in Kleiner Berkins, the company that eventually led this round.

“I started in e -commerce, so I always believed in technology to transform how people shop online,” Robin said in a statement to Techcrunch. “What excites me in Phia is how Phoe and Sophia brings real innovation to space by making shopping more intelligent and using technology to cancel a better experience for everyone.”

Many marketing in Pia is Gen Z, also: focuses on the organic content led by the founder. She and Gates, for example, are open about the experiences they drag with Phia; They ask people to send a message to them, and use social media to employ talent designers and sources. delusion Use Chatgpt to help With marketing in the pursuit of viral campaigns.

They also receive some assistance in obtaining interest in their Burnouts, which was also launched in April. She has Almost half a million Followers on Instagram. Knaani said that podcast helps in converting to Phia, because it focuses on sharing job advice for young people, especially women. She already collected 10 million views across various social media platforms.

The “open source” podcasts allowed them how to build and Gates are their company, and they speak through all obstacles and obstacles, which in turn help others who look forward to starting companies in this space, and continued.

“We have followed a very numerical approach to everything,” Kayani said. “I think it was part of the reason we saw such a rapid traction.”

Gates and Kianni said that the new capital will be used mainly to build the team (there are only 12 people at the present time), and they are employed via social media, naturally. In general, the duo see the future of personal shopping.

Gates said that she once hoped to build a dedicated agent who can help synchronize with calendars and inform clients whenever they buy and what, and what should be reselling, and what to keep.

Kayani added: “There is a lot that we still have to do, much more than that we want to learn and grow.” “We want to be able to do this publicly, so that our fans can learn and grow next to us.”