PALO ALTO, CA, JOYUS today announced the public beta launch of the world's first premium video commerce experience at Joyus.com, offering women a new, transformative way to shop online.

The company also announced its closing of a first institutional round of funding bringing total capital raised to $7.9M. Lead investors Accel Partners and Harrison Metal join angel investors Joel Hyatt, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of CurrentTV, and Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, SVPs of Global Ecommerce at Walmart. Accel's Theresia Gouw Ranzetta and Harrison Metal's Michael Dearing will join the JOYUS board of directors.

JOYUS was founded in January 2011 by Founder & Chairman Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, former President of Asia Pacific and Latin America Operations at Google and Co-Founder of the online personal finance company Yodlee. Singh Cassidy is joined by Co-Founder and VP of Product Diana Williams, formerly Director of Product Management (Fashion) at eBay; Chief Curator Gina Pell, Founder and former Content Chief at Splendora, a pioneering fashion and lifestyle website with over 100,000 followers acquired by JOYUS in April 2011; and CTO and VP of Engineering Sin Mei Tsai, previously from Efficient Frontier and SendMe Mobile.

While the e-commerce 3.0 space has seen an influx of interest over the past 2 years, overall penetration of e-commerce remains low at 7.9% of total U.S. retail sales, particularly for key categories such as apparel and lifestyle products, according to Internet Retailer.

"Until now, no one has been able to solve some real problems that exist in e-commerce today, especially in the soft goods category," says Singh Cassidy. "JOYUS is addressing these issues by leveraging the power of video from discovery all the way to purchase. Imagine a video that helps you discover, use and buy the products you'll love online, seamlessly. That doesn't exist. JOYUS is a revolutionary step that we think will transform the shopping experience for users online, starting with female shoppers."

Accel's Theresia Gouw Ranzetta agrees. "Accel looks to partner with entrepreneurs who are game-changers. Sukhinder and her team have created a new model for online shopping in JOYUS, using short-form video to drive product discovery, sales and customer loyalty," says Ranzetta. "We see video being used by other e-commerce retailers to showcase products, but no one is integrating it as powerfully into the shopping and brand experience as JOYUS. This is a real differentiator that we believe will attract new retailers who are looking to market their products in a new and engaging way online."

Early retail partners already are seeing strong sell-through on JOYUS videos. "Our experience with JOYUS has been great," says Catherine Chow of Azalea Boutique. "The JOYUS platform allows us to reach a broader audience of passionate, fashion savvy women with our new, in-season inventory. We see video on JOYUS being an exciting new component of our online marketing strategy."

JOYUS has been testing its video sales platform with its first customers since spring; according to Singh Cassidy, early data on the site shows conversion to sales is highest when viewers watch between 2:30 to 3:30 minutes of a JOYUS video. These and other early JOYUS analytics suggest video can increase not only engagement, but sales online via direct response marketing.

To learn more about JOYUS contact Amy Rosenberg at press@joyus.com, visit the Press Center or download the press kit at joyus.com. You can also directly access JOYUS here: https://www.joyus.com/sale/body-lotion-to-make-your-skin-glow.

About Accel Partners
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London, New Delhi and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel.

Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including Actuate, AdMob, Agile Software, Alfresco, AMCC, Arrowpoint, Atlassian, BBN, Brightcove, Check24, ComScore, Etsy, Facebook, Foundry Networks, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak, Macromedia, metroPCS, OPOWER, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech, Quidsi (diapers.com), Rapt, Real Networks, Redback Networks, Responsys, Riverbed, SupportSoft, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, Wily Technology, XenSource and Zimbra. For more information, please visit the Accel Partners web site at www.accel.com, or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accel.

About Harrison Metal
Harrison Metal is a seed-stage venture capital partnership founded by Michael Dearing and based in Palo Alto, CA. The firm focuses on software and services for consumers, developers and businesses. Harrison Metal's investments include AdMob, Heroku, Aardvark, PopCap, Twitter, GigWalk, Euclid Elements, ModCloth and Yardsellr. www.harrisonmetal.com