Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni turned their Stanford dorm room into a startup lab.
It’s a time-honored tradition at Stanford, a rite of passage many tech bigwigs have undertaken. Gates and Kianni started as randomly assigned roommates, but soon bonded over their shared love of activism and business. And, like many aspiring Stanford founders before them, they were looking for an idea—pinning up articles in their kitchen, calling potential customers from their floors, and scribbling on a whiteboard.
One topic kept emerging over and over: clothes, both the ones scattered about their dorm room and what they were looking to buy. Both avid secondhand shoppers, Kianni and Gates realized they did a lot of research before buying anything—and that they weren’t alone.
“We wanted to create something that could do all of our shopping for us,” said Kianni. “Do it instantly and effortlessly, rather than all the manual price comparison and tab-opening we were doing on our computers.”
The idea took a minute to take off. They were rejected from one entrepreneurship class, then accepted into another, attracting some early pre-seed funding from Soma Capital and a Stanford professor who liked their pitch. The pitch was an early iteration of what they’re doing now: In 2023, Gates and Kianni moved to New York to start Phia, an AI-driven shopping agent. Phia—an app and mobile browser extension—launched in April 2025, and has since reached 500,000 users and more than 5,000 direct brand partners. (Kianni and Gates also have their own podcast, The Burnouts, via Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network, launched in April.)
“During the time we were building the MVP [minimum viable product], we ended up going out and—even though it was awful—giving it to about 500 different users,” said Gates (who, yes, is the daughter of Bill and Melinda). “The stats we were seeing were incredible, huge repeat purchase rates, retention was huge. Mind you, at the time Phia was not perfect… But I remember there was one day we took the MVP down, because it wasn’t working the way we wanted. And people reached out: ‘Where’s Phia?’”
Phia, a portmanteau of both Kianni and Gates’ first names, has now raised $8 million in seed funding, Fortune has exclusively learned. Kleiner Perkins led the round. It’s a star-studded affair, with participation from Hailey Bieber, Kris Jenner, Sheryl Sandberg, Spanx’s Sara Blakely, Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, and eBay Ventures, among others. To Kleiner Perkins partner Annie Case, Phia is building on broader economic and consumer tailwinds.
“There is a shift towards value,” Case said via email. “American consumers are price selective, deal-driven, and less brand loyal. Phia is meeting the moment.”
The U.S. e-commerce apparel market, as Case points out, is huge, crossing $200 billion this year and heavily skewed towards mobile. Despite the market’s size, the digital shopping experience hasn’t evolved over the last decade as much as you’d think.
“I think there’s been so little innovation in the shopping space for so long because it seems like ‘well, that’s a hobby for girls,” said Kianni. “The reality is that the fashion industry is worth between $1.7 and $2.5 trillion.”
E-commerce tools have fallen in and out of vogue with VCs over the last few years. It’s a tough market, with lots of unanswered questions about the future. Because shopping on a discretionary level isn’t just personal—it’s sociological and expressive. And often, why we want what we want is mysterious, even to us. But Kianni and Gates are looking for answers in a process that’s about conversation and experimentation.
“We’re talking to over four users a day,” said Gates. “Every other week, we have 40 young women come to our office who are power users. And we tell them: ‘Roast our app. Tell us what you hate. What do you want to see in the future?’”
Like that Stanford dorm room, Phia is its own kind of lab.
“We are scientists,” Gates added. “We need to be consistently running experiments. If users don’t like it, we go back to the drawing board… We ask: Why is that? What can we fix here?”
Term Sheet Podcast…This week, on the Term Sheet Podcast, we have Phia! I spoke with Phoebe, Sophia, and Annie about what’s wrong with online shopping today, how to build a consumer company, why there aren’t more women building companies, and what AI tools can bring to the digital shopping experience. Listen and watch here.
StubHub…Today, StubHub is expected to go public. This marks another long-anticipated public markets debut as the IPO market continues to loosen up.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Venture Deals
- Figure, a San Jose, Calif.-based autonomous robot developer, raised $1 billion in Series C funding. Parkway Venture Capital led the round and was joined by Brookfield Asset Management, NVIDIA, Macquarie Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, Tamarack Global, LG Technology Ventures, Salesforce, T-Mobile Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures.
- Dyna Robotics, a Redwood City, Calif.-based developer of general-purpose robots, raised $120 million in Series A funding. Robostrategy, CRV, and First Round Capital led the round and was joined by Salesforce Ventures, NVentures, and others.
- Chestnut Carbon, a New York City-based developer of nature-based carbon credits, raised $90 million in additional Series B funding from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
- PassiveLogic, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based developer of physical AI technology for buildings, raised $74 million in Series C funding. noa led the round and was joined by Prologis Ventures, Johnson Controls, and PSP Growth.
- Luminary Cloud, a San Mateo, Calif.-based physics AI platform for engineering teams, raised $72 million in funding. N47 led the round and was joined by Sutter Hill Ventures and NVentures.
- Dualitas, a South San Francisco, Calif.-based developer of novel antibody therapies for immunology and inflammation, raised $65 million in Series A funding. Versant Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners USA led the round and were joined by SV Health Investors and others.
- CodeRabbit, a San Francisco-based AI code review platform, raised $60 million in Series B funding. Scale Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Nventures and others.
- Vega, a Tel Aviv, Israel and New York City-based security operations platform, raised $65 million across seed and Series A rounds from Accel, Cyberstarts, Redpoint, and CRV.
- AllRock Bio, a Natick, Mass.-based developer of therapies for cardiopulmonary and fibrotic diseases, raised $50 million in Series A funding. Versant Ventures and Westlake Bio Partners.
- Nory, a London, U.K.-based AI-powered restaurant management system, raised $37 million in Series B funding. Kinnevik led the round and was joined by Accel and existing investors.
- Stablecore, a Dallas, Texas-based platform designed for regional banks and credit unions to offer stablecoins, raised $20 million in funding. Norwest Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Coinbase Ventures, Curql, BankTech Ventures, Bank of Utah and others.
- Envive AI, a Seattle, Wash.-based AI platform for retail brands, raised $15 million in Series A funding. FuseVC led the round and was joined by Point72 Ventures.
- MetalBear, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based developer of the open source Kubernetes development solution mirrord, raised $12.5 million in seed funding. TLV Partners led the round and was joined by TQ Ventures, MTF, and Netz Capital.
- Plumerai, a London, U.K. and Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based developer of an on-device AI for cameras, raised $8.7 million in Series A funding. Partech and OTB Ventures led the round and were joined by Acclimate Ventures and existing investors.
- Iris Finance, a Chicago, Ill.-based AI-powered profit planning platform for consumer brands, raised $6.2 million in seed funding. Glasswing Ventures led the round and was joined by Founder Collective, Hyde Park Angels, and others.
- Overmind, a London, U.K.-based predictive change intelligence company, raised $6 million in seed funding. Renegade Partners led the round and was joined by Four Rivers, Operator Collective, Dan Scheinman, and Walter Kortschak.
- Nestimate, a Lincoln, Neb.-based retirement income solutions platform, raised $3 million in funding. S3 Ventures led the round and was joined by PruVen Capital, TIAA Ventures, and Invest Nebraska.
- Time Atlas Labs, a Helsinki, Finland-based app that automatically tracks exercise activities, raised €1.8 million ($2.1 million). Lifeline Ventures led the round.
Private Equity
- GHO Capital Partners agreed to acquire Scientist.com, a Solana Beach, Calif.-based life sciences research and development procurement platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Momentum, a portfolio company of CORE Industrial Partners, acquired Superior Lithographics, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based provider of folding cartons, corrugated top sheets, and litho labels. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- PriceShape, a portfolio company of Copilot Capital, acquired Priceindx, a Stockholm, Sweden-based retail pricing platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Spectrum Equity acquired a majority stake in Poppins Payroll, a Boulder, Colo.-based household payroll platform for families and caregivers. Financial terms were not disclosed.