TL;DR
Spangle, an AI-led e-commerce startup founded by former Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla, secured $15 million in an all-equity Series A that values the company at $100 million. The Seattle-based firm says its ProductGPT engine personalizes shopping pages in real time and has landed nine enterprise customers while reporting rapid traffic and revenue growth.
What happened
Spangle, cofounded by Maju Kuruvilla and CTO Fei Wang, closed a $15 million Series A round led by NewRoad Capital Partners, bringing the company’s total capital raised to roughly $21 million. The new investment pushes Spangle’s post-money valuation to $100 million, up from a $30 million pre-money evaluation at its $6 million seed round last year. The startup offers software that serves blank entry pages which its AI — branded ProductGPT — populates on the fly using signals like referral source, search and click behavior, and patterns from similar visitors. Since leaving stealth in March, Spangle has signed nine enterprise customers, including fashion retailers Revolve, Alexander Wang and Steve Madden, whose combined online sales the company says amount to about $3.8 billion. Spangle reported traffic growth of roughly 57% month-over-month and says it quadrupled annualized revenue in the fourth quarter, though it did not disclose specific revenue figures. The company has six full-time employees and plans to use the funding to expand R&D, engineering and sales.
Why it matters
- Shifts discovery away from static category pages toward dynamically generated, context-aware shopping experiences.
- Real-time personalization could change how brands convert traffic that arrives from AI tools, social platforms and recommendation engines.
- Spangle's model suggests startups can scale enterprise software with small teams by leveraging AI infrastructure.
- Retailers may need new tooling to optimize returns from ad spend and to respond to automated discovery channels.
Key facts
- Series A: $15 million, all-equity round led by NewRoad Capital Partners.
- Post-money valuation after the round: $100 million.
- Total funding to date: $21 million (including a prior $6 million seed round).
- Founders: Maju Kuruvilla (former Bolt CEO) and CTO Fei Wang (former Amazon engineer and ex-CTO at Saks Off 5th).
- Customers: nine enterprise clients, including Revolve, Alexander Wang and Steve Madden.
- Claims by the company: ~57% month-on-month traffic growth across the platform.
- Spangle reports it quadrupled its annualized revenue in Q4 but did not disclose exact revenue figures.
- Product approach: route visitors to blank pages that ProductGPT fills in real time using signals and catalog data.
- Reported customer outcomes (per company statements): close to 50% lift in revenue per visit, doubled return on ad spend, and a 15% increase in average order value.
- Current headcount: six full-time employees.
What to watch next
- Whether Spangle will begin publicly disclosing concrete revenue figures and standardized performance metrics (not confirmed in the source).
- Customer expansion beyond the nine enterprise clients named and the pace at which new retailers adopt real-time AI page generation (not confirmed in the source).
- How competitors and legacy commerce platforms respond to AI-native page generation and whether similar solutions replicate Spangle’s claimed lifts in ROAS and revenue per visit (not confirmed in the source).
Quick glossary
- Series A: An early institutional funding round for startups aimed at scaling product development, go-to-market efforts, and hiring after initial seed financing.
- Pre-money valuation: The estimated value of a company before new capital from an investment round is added.
- Product recommendations: Algorithms or systems that suggest items to shoppers based on behavior, preferences, or patterns from other users.
- Return on ad spend (ROAS): A marketing metric that measures revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.
- AI-generated shopping experience: A shopping interface or content assembled in real time by machine learning models to match user context and intent.
Reader FAQ
Who founded Spangle?
Spangle was founded by Maju Kuruvilla and CTO Fei Wang.
How much did Spangle raise and what is the valuation?
Spangle raised $15 million in a Series A round, valuing the company at $100 million post-money.
Which investors participated in the round?
The round was led by NewRoad Capital Partners and included Madrona, DNX Ventures, Streamlined Ventures and strategic angel investors.
What revenue or financial figures did the company disclose?
The company said it quadrupled annualized revenue in Q4 but did not provide specific revenue numbers.
How many employees does Spangle have?
Spangle currently has six full-time employees.
Spangle, an AI e-commerce startup founded by former Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla, has raised $15 million in a new funding round, valuing the company at $100 million after the investment….
Sources
- Former Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla’s startup triples to $100M valuation
- Retail Tech Investment and M&A Tracker
- The State of Vertical AI (Q1)
- Li, Ang – A. James Clark School of Engineering
Related posts
- Mothers (YC X26) is hiring: three on-site software engineering roles in Austin
- 2026: RGB LED TVs Bring Brighter, More Accurate Color to Mainstream
- Premium TV performance gap narrows as TCL and Hisense close in