Daydream

Daydream is out to reimagine online shopping from the ground up and we're hiring engineers. Apply if you think you're a great fit and send this to someone you think would love to work on the forefront of applied Gen AI with an incredible team. Two of our top priority open roles: 1. Senior Backend Engineer - https://lnkd.in/g2qdGiYH 2. Staff Software Engineer on Search, Ranking, and Recommendations - https://lnkd.in/g7KXcY5J

Daydream is out to reimagine online shopping from the ground up and we're hiring engineers. Apply if you think you're a great fit and send this to someone you think would love to work on the forefront of applied Gen AI with an incredible team. Two of our top priority open roles: 1. Senior Backend Engineer - https://lnkd.in/g2qdGiYH 2. Staff Software Engineer on Search, Ranking, and Recommendations - https://lnkd.in/g7KXcY5J

Daydream, an AI search engine for e-commerce, just raised $50M in seed funding from Forerunner Ventures, Index Ventures, True Ventures, and GV. This investment highlights the potential VCs see in AI disrupting the search market, even amid a broader funding slowdown. Founded by ex-Stitch Fix COO Julie Bornstein, Daydream leverages generative AI, ML, and computer vision to offer highly personalized search experiences, visual AI for image-based searches, and contextual search understanding based on location, purpose, and season. Why are investors betting on AI search companies, and what could this mean for the future of e-commerce and search? Discover more in our newsletter: https://lnkd.in/d8EAQ8Hd #techbuzz #innovation #technology #daydream #ecommerce #shopify

We've supported Founder Julie Bornstein since we invested in THE YES (acquired by Pinterest) and are excited to back her once again with her latest company. Daydream is an AI-powered search and discovery platform that applies generative AI to a curated fashion catalogue. “I have always been particularly obsessed with search and personalisation and could not be more excited for the massive gains in AI over the past year. We can finally build an intelligent online-shopping platform that will make it easy and fun for consumers to find products they love among the best selection of brands and retailers in the world.” – Daydream Co-founder & CEO Julie Bornstein Read more about the platform and Julie's plans in Vogue Business: https://lnkd.in/gU3g-PhG

Online shopping is seriously broken. Think about the last time you discovered a new fashion brand online. If your experience is anything like mine, it’s easier to imagine scratching your head for the right keywords, clicking through pages of dead links and irrelevant search results, and navigating hundreds of open tabs from a dozen different websites. At Index, we believe AI will transform online discovery and inspiration in the same way e-commerce transformed retail. Just imagine a more curated online shopping experience, similar to stepping into your favorite retail store. You can talk to someone, get personalized recommendations, and just feel inspired browsing the racks. A few months ago, I got early access to Daydream's new AI-powered online shopping platform. Led by industry titan Julie Bornstein, it allows users to describe what they’re looking for in natural language, delivering personalized results from close to 2,000 retailers. The first time I logged on, I told it I wanted sneakers that would look good with jeans, and that wouldn’t make my feet too hot. To my surprise, it responded first with a helpful explanation of why certain shoes make you hot. Then it returned a range of results that fit my exact criteria. Within 15 minutes I was checking out with a pair of Nikes I’d been trying to find for 2+ years. If you don’t know Julie, she’s a visionary leader with a track record of scaling large organizations through chaos and thriving in startup environments -- she held leadership roles at Stitch Fix, Sephora, Nordstrom, and Urban Outfitters. Julie is joined by a talented and tight-knit founding team that includes Matt Fisher, Dan Cary, Lisa Yamner Green, and Richard Kim. They bring deep connections across the global fashion industry and proven AI expertise from past roles at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. I’m excited to partner with this group and support their vision of AI-powered search and discovery in online shopping. To learn more about our investment in Daydream, and to find out how you can sign up for their waitlist, head over to our blog. https://lnkd.in/eMBU_KDJ

We’re excited to welcome Daydream and Julie Bornstein to the GV portfolio! ✨ Led by e-commerce, technology, and retail veterans, Daydream is creating a new era for online shopping through AI-powered search and discovery. GV’s Frederique Dame shares, "We believe the winners in this new technology chapter will be those who deeply understand consumer Al and search trends, and the Daydream team has unparalleled domain expertise in this area. We're thrilled to partner with Julie Bornstein and the team as they build a category-defining Al platform that changes how people shop online.” Learn more — http://tcrn.ch/3RC3R6S

Online shopping is due for a makeover. As a consumer, it’s hard to get inspired when you’re relying on rigid keyword searches and clicking through pages of ads, irrelevant results, and dead inventory. It’s not much better for brands who depend on ad platforms like Google and Meta, with no visibility into customer preferences or behavior. Imagine instead a world where discovering brands online is as easy as walking into your favorite store. You see carefully curated tables and racks of new and familiar labels. You talk to a sales associate and get personalized recommendations just for you. We believe AI has the power to make this dream a reality, and to make online shopping not just easier and more streamlined, but more inspiring, personalized and enjoyable. That’s why we’re excited to invest in Daydream, a new AI-powered online shopping platform that allows users to describe what they’re looking for in natural language, delivering personalized results from a vast catalog of women’s and men’s fashion brands. Daydream is co-founded and led by industry veteran Julie Bornstein, who brings a proven track record of scaling large organizations (Sephora, Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters) and thriving in startup environments (Stitch Fix, THE YES). Julie is joined by an impressive founding team that includes Matt Fisher, Dan Cary, Lisa Yamner Green, and Richard Kim. They bring diverse but complementary skill sets, ranging from deep expertise in generative AI from past roles at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to vital connections across the global fashion industry. We’re excited to partner with Daydream and support their vision of AI-powered search and discovery in fashion.

If Generative AI has exposed anything, it’s that the prevailing search experience is post peak. Traditional search engines have long served as gateways to the internet for people looking for information, products and services, but as the volume and complexity of options has grown, this value has rapidly deteriorated. The experience is chaotic and ineffective, where ads and SEO take precedence over true personalization. The need for contextual, intelligent discovery is evident. But when it comes to the evolution of search, we believe the future experience won’t look much like search at all. Rather, discovery will take the shape of tailored, dynamic services, where users can not only access information but interact with a highly personalized, actionable edit of what’s uniquely relevant to them. We imagine vertical-specific portals to the world of options: imagine a discovery platform that can book itineraries, style outfits, scrapbook research, turn a mosaic of health insights into tailored action plans, and present financial data in the context of personal realities and goals. Our investment in Daydream marks an early iteration of this shift, where the diminishing value of search is eclipsed by personal, actionable discovery services. Daydream, which opened its waitlist yesterday ahead of launching later this year, is a new approach to shopping. Led by retail visionary Julie Bornstein, the Daydream founding team - including Matt Fisher, Lisa Yamner Green, Richard Kim, and Dan Cary - has spent over a decade operating at the intersection of commerce and AI, hailing from Microsoft AI, Google, YouTube’s Gen AI division, Sephora, Nordstrom, StitchFix, Farfetch and more. We are pleased to share that we are leading the $50M seed funding alongside Index Ventures' Vlad Tenev and Danny Rimer, with participation from GV (Google Ventures)'s Frederique Dame and David Krane and True Ventures' Jon Callaghan. Not only is Daydream poised to transform shopping, we believe it has the potential to inspire the new standard in how people seek out what they want. https://lnkd.in/gWTgMFCg

Daydream secures $50m seed funding to launch AI-powered search and discovery shopping platform #AI #ecommerce #retail #fashion #tech #venturecapital #privateequity