Former Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla’s startup triples to $100M valuation

Spangle, an innovative AI-driven e-commerce platform founded by Maju Kuruvilla, the former CEO of Bolt, has successfully raised $15 million in its latest funding round, bringing its valuation to an impressive $100 million. This Series A financing, led by NewRoad Capital Partners, marks a significant milestone for the Seattle-based startup, which emerged from stealth mode just over a year ago with a $6 million seed funding at a $30 million pre-money valuation. This latest investment round saw participation from several notable investors, including Madrona, DNX Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, and strategic angel backers, elevating total funding for Spangle to $21 million. The startup aims to revolutionize how consumers discover products online, especially as AI technologies, social media, and recommendation engines increasingly dictate buying behaviors before shoppers even visit a retailer's website. Kuruvilla envisions Spangle as a solution to these evolving consumer needs. The platform offers retailers a personalized shopping experience, leveraging real-time, AI-generated product recommendations and layouts as customers navigate their sites. Since its launch last March, Spangle has signed up nine enterprise clients, including prominent fashion retailers like Revolve, Alexander Wang, and Steve Madden, collectively representing around $3.8 billion in online sales. The platform has seen remarkable growth, with traffic increasing approximately 57% month-over-month and all clients expanding their usage of Spangle's software. The startup reported a quadrupling of its annualized revenue in the last quarter, although specific revenue figures were not disclosed. Spangle's unique approach involves directing shoppers to a blank page rather than pre-defined product or category listings. The platform's AI, powered by its proprietary ProductGPT model, dynamically fills this page in real time, utilizing various signals like the customer's origin and previous interactions to present tailored products and recommendations. According to Kuruvilla, brands utilizing Spangle have experienced nearly a 50% rise in revenue per visit, doubled returns on advertising spend, and a 15% increase in average order value. He emphasized that Spangle is designed to future-proof brands, continuously training its AI model on each retailer's catalog and performance data for automatic adaptability. Ryan Pabelona, Vice President of Performance Marketing at Revolve, highlighted that Spangle's software has enabled significant improvements in their shopping experiences, achieving about a 60% enhancement in return on ad spend and a 50% increase in revenue per visit. Before founding Spangle in 2024, Kuruvilla was at the helm of Bolt and spent over a decade at Amazon, where he gained extensive experience in e-commerce and AI. Kuruvilla co-founded Spangle with CTO Fei Wang, a former Amazon principal engineer with expertise in AI and customer service technologies. Their background in commerce and payment platforms has contributed to Spangle's mission of creating a robust infrastructure rather than merely implementing incremental improvements. Some industry observers have likened Spangle to a Shopify for AI-enhanced commerce. As shopping increasingly incorporates AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT and various browser-based agents, Kuruvilla noted that retailers will need adaptable software capable of responding to both human customers and automated systems, moving beyond static webpages. He pointed out that Spangle's viability has emerged from three converging trends: consumer comfort with AI in product discovery, the rapid expansion of discovery channels beyond traditional platforms like Google and Meta, and advancements in AI technology that have drastically reduced costs and latency for real-time experience generation. Currently, Spangle operates with a lean team of six full-time employees, exemplifying how AI tools enable startups to effectively scale enterprise solutions with minimal personnel. With the latest funding, Kuruvilla expressed plans to invest heavily in research and development, expand the engineering team, and enhance the sales organization.