Daydream, a startup founded by e-commerce veterans, today announced it has raised $50 million in seed funding to change how people discover products when shopping online, using artificial intelligence to provide a more personalized experience.

The massive opener funding round was co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Index Ventures with participation from Alphabet Inc.’s startup investment arm GV and True Ventures. The company said that it will use the funds to help usher in its new way for people to browse catalogs of products in ways they haven’t experienced before.

Arriving in beta test mode this fall, Daydream will open up its first category with men’s and women’s fashion, using AI computer vision models and generative AI capabilities to allow users to tell a search engine what they’re looking for. Although the company gave scant details on exactly what the search would look like, the website revealed that it would be a natural language interface using conversational prompts.

For example, users could type, “I’m shopping for cozy and effortless vibes,” and get shirts, shoes and more fitting that theme. Or, if they’ve already been browsing a particular item, they could type in, “I love this tote but I’d like it without stripes,” and view a whole new set of bags but with the appropriate visuals.

Similarly, a user looking for an ensemble that would fit a locale could ask the search engine for something such as, “I need a dress for a summer vacation in Costa Rica,” and the AI would personalize the search for fashion appropriate for subtropical climes.

The startup was co-founded by Chief Executive Julie Bornstein, a longtime authority from the e-commerce industry. She has held leadership roles at startups such as Stitch Fix Inc., where she served as chief operating officer and board member. She also helped build e-commerce sites for multichannel retailers, including Sephora SAS, as chief marketing officer and chief digital officer, as well as Nordstrom Inc. and Urban Outfitters Inc. Daydream’s founding team includes former leaders from Google LLC, Microsoft Corp., Amazon Inc. and Nordstrom.

“I have always been particularly obsessed with search and personalization and could not be more excited for the massive gains in AI over the past year,” Bornstein said. “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.”

Although traditional e-commerce sites have begun to bolt on AI searches to their product search engines, Daydream argues that this incorporation into legacy systems is insufficient to provide the highly personalized search needed for high customer satisfaction. At its core, the startup’s AI system is built from the ground up to be highly intuitive and personal to the user. It’s designed to remove the biggest pain points experienced by shoppers who miss out on items they want to see or get tossed into a sea of irrelevant results.

During the pre-launch phase, Daydream gathered up close to 2,000 brands for its launch catalog through partnerships with retailers, which means that in the fall, users will have a wide variety of products to choose from.

“Eighty-eight percent of shoppers are more likely to visit sites that personalize their experience,” said Frédérique Dame, general partner at GV, citing a recent study from Datanami. “Daydream takes a new AI-driven approach to create a better shopping experience online with highly curated product recommendations. We believe the winners in this new technology chapter will be those who deeply understand consumer AI and search trends, and the Daydream team has unparalleled domain expertise in this area.”

Image: Daydream