The Hunt (www.thehunt.com), the app that sits at the nexus of ecommerce and photo sharing for millennials, today announced that Khosla Ventures is joining previous investor Javelin Ventures in bringing the company's total Series B funding to $10 million. The funding follows the recent $5.5 million Series A investment with the total funding amounting to $15.5M million. Proceeds will be used for hiring, as the company has doubled its staff since mid-2013, and plans to continue building its team to accommodate its rapidly growing user base.
Also announced today, Ben Ling, Investment Partner at Khosla Ventures, will join The Hunt's board. Ling has an extensive track record as a senior executive at Google, YouTube and Facebook, helping these companies scale their users and revenues. Ling is also an angel investor in Square, Quora, Fab, Palantir, and PracticeFusion, with advisory roles at Pinterest and Pulse.
'In the last ten years, Google scaled its search revenue by understanding intent through text queries,' said Ling. 'Today, The Hunt is changing the way that people shop online by identifying intent on the visual web. Monetizing the visual web is the next big opportunity, and we are looking forward to being a part of The Hunt's success.'
Since its launch in January 2013, The Hunt has connected the inspiration and discovery of the visual web with intent, and ultimately purchase, on e-commerce sites by making photos 'shoppable.' Today, over half a million monthly active users (MAU) and 100,000 daily active users (DAU) on mobile engage with The Hunt as a fun, quick way to turn shopping into entertainment. The average user spends nine minutes per session on The Hunt, rivaling engagement levels usually only seen in social and gaming spheres. More than 2 million Hunts are started and followed per week.
'Try typing 'little black dress' in Google and you get 331 million results. Try finding the perfect one (conservative or edgy or silky or flowing) and you'll see how time-consuming this task can be,' said Tim Weingarten, CEO and co-founder of The Hunt. 'The Hunt is the first solution to shoppers' deep-rooted frustration in trying to find exactly what they're looking for, fast. If you have a photo of a dress you really like but can't find, chances are our community of like-minded shoppers will have a suggestion for you, probably within a day.'
The Hunt taps into existing passion for fashion, the camaraderie of community, and the enticement of an ongoing, fun, but achievable challenge. Unlike online fashion marketplaces that are limited by size of catalog, extent of index or automated approaches to nuanced searches, the fast-growing and altruistic community of shoppers that makes up The Hunt provides a place to get suggestions for coveted fashions that match a shopper's taste at the at their specified budget.
'We've been inspired by stories from our users, like Rachel Talbott, who has a great lifestyle and beauty You Tube channel called Check In The Mirror, who was searching for a pair of metallic silver heels but couldn't find them anywhere. She posted a picture of the heels on The Hunt, and told the community that she wanted them for under $100. The community immediately identified the original shoes and also provided Rachel with a few budget friendly options, completing her quest for the perfect pair of heels,' Weingarten added.
The Hunt is available for iOS at www.thehunt.com/iphone and on the web at www.thehunt.com.
About The Hunt
Founded in 2011 by Tim Weingarten and Simon Peck, The Hunt is a global community of shoppers centered on bringing together fashion images that inspire with the ecommerce sites that make the attainable. The company is backed by Khosla Ventures, Javelin Ventures, among others. For more information about the San Francisco-based startup, please visit www.thehunt.com.