Maju Kuruvilla’s AI E-Commerce Venture Spangle Reaches $100 Million Valuation with New Funding
Spangle, an innovative AI-driven e-commerce startup founded by former Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla, has successfully raised $15 million in its latest funding round, culminating in a valuation of $100 million. This Series A funding, led by NewRoad Capital Partners, marks a substantial increase from the startup’s previous $30 million pre-money valuation following a $6 million seed round last year. Additional contributions from investors including Madrona, DNX Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, and strategic angel investors have propelled total funding to $21 million.
With significant transformations in the online retail landscape, Spangle aims to help retailers enhance product discovery through AI-enhanced shopping experiences. Kuruvilla is determined to tackle the challenges posed by changing consumer behavior influenced by AI tools, social media platforms, and recommendation engines. Spangle’s software utilizes real-time, AI-generated product suggestions tailored to shoppers as they navigate through retail websites.
Since bursting onto the scene in March 2022, Spangle has secured nine enterprise customers, including major fashion brands like Revolve, Alexander Wang, and Steve Madden, which together boast an impressive $3.8 billion in online sales. The start-up has reported a remarkable 57% month-on-month traffic growth across its platform, with all clients amplifying their software utilization. Notably, the company has quadrupled its annualized revenue in the fourth quarter, though specific figures remain undisclosed.
Spangle’s strategy is rooted in a unique concept: redirecting shoppers to a customizable blank page rather than standard product or category pages. The AI model, known as ProductGPT, adapitates content in real time by analyzing data such as the customer’s entry point, search queries, and behaviors of similar visitors to deliver personalized product recommendations.
Kuruvilla highlighted Spangle’s mission to create a future-proof shopping environment, stating that the platform builds a bespoke AI model for each retailer based on their specific catalog and performance metrics. This adaptive approach has already yielded significant results for partners like Revolve, which experienced a 60% increase in return on ad spend and a 50% rise in revenue per visitor, according to Ryan Pabelona, the retailer’s vice president of performance marketing.
Before founding Spangle in 2024, Kuruvilla held key positions at Bolt and spent over ten years enhancing Amazon’s commerce and AI systems. He teamed up with CTO Fei Wang, a former Amazon principal engineer with expertise in Alexa and customer service technologies.
Kuruvilla noted that their expertise in commerce and payment infrastructures informs Spangle’s development, aiming for substantial innovations rather than marginal adjustments. The startup is often likened to a Shopify for the AI-enhanced commerce sector.
In line with the growing trend of AI-driven shopping experiences facilitated by tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Kuruvilla advocates for solutions that can dynamically meet the needs of both human shoppers and automated systems, moving beyond static web pages.
Currently, Spangle operates with a lean team of six full-time employees, showcasing how AI allows startups to efficiently scale enterprise software with minimal personnel. With fresh financial backing, Kuruvilla aims to deepen research and development efforts, expand the engineering team, and enhance the sales organization.
