AI-Powered Shopping Platform Onton Raises $7.5 Million to Expand into New Categories

Tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Amazon are not only leveraging AI to aid in content generation and summarization but also to revolutionize the shopping experience. Startups such as Perplexity, Daydream, and Cherry have also tapped into AI for product discovery, resulting in a growing trend of consumers using AI for shopping. One such startup, Onton (previously known as Deft), an AI-powered furniture shopping platform, has witnessed exponential user base growth.

The company recently secured $7.5 million in a funding round led by Footwork, with participation from Liquid 2, Parable Ventures, and 43, bringing its total funding to about $10 million. With this funding, Onton aims to expand into new categories such as apparel and eventually consumer electronics. The company, which rebranded from Deft to Onton earlier this year, utilizes neuro-symbolic architecture to enhance its core technology, providing logical search results and addressing challenges posed by large language models (LLMs).

Onton's AI model incorporates various input methods and features to assist consumers with their purchasing decisions, including image and prompt-based searches, as well as the ability to visualize products in different settings. The company has plans to increase its team size and is gearing up to launch its apparel category, where it will face competition from Daydream, Aesthetic, and Style.ai.

Source: Tech Crunch